Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/guidetomontessorOOstev 



A GUIDE TO 
THE MONTESSORI METHOD 




DR. MARIA MONTESSORI 



A GUIDE TO 



THE 



MONTESSOM METHOD 



BY 



ELLEN YALE STEVENS 



WITH FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS 
FROM PHOTOGRAPHS 




NEW YORK 

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 

MCMXIII 






Copyright, 1913, by 
Frederick A. Stokes Company 



All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign 
languages, including the Scandinavian 







February, 1913 



TSU'M^PLE.PRJBSS.TqRK.PA 



©CU34350 



DEDICATED 

BY PERMISSION TO 

PROFESSOR JOHN DEWEY 

WHO BY HIS TEACHING AND WRITING HAS PREPARED 

THE MINDS OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

TO RECEIVE THE THEORIES 

OF DR. MONTESSORI 



PREFACE 

It is more than twelve years ago that an 
illuminating course in Educational Psychol- 
ogy which I took under Professor John 
Dewey, then of the University of Chicago, 
directed what had until that time been on 
my part only a general interest in psychology, 
toward the specific question of the relation 
of various educational theories to the truths 
of child psychology. The interest so direct- 
ed was further stimulated by my relations 
with Professor Thorndike of the Teacher's 
College in connection with his courses in 
methods there. The subsequent years of 
experience as principal of a school which 
includes a kindergarten and primary depart- 
ment in its curriculum, and as a teacher of 
elementary psychology to the older pupils, 
have given concrete opportunities for putting 
theories into practice. 

The last fifteen months have been largely 
devoted as time permitted to an intensive 
study of Dr. Montessori and her principles 
of education including not only her book, 
"Pedagogica Scientifica," and its translation 
into English, "The Montessori Method of 
[vii] 



PREFACE 

Scientific Pedagogy/' 1 but a three months' 
trip to Italy where I had the advantages of 
personal conferences with Dr. Montessori 
and the best exponents of her "method," 
and also of extended visits to all the schools 
in Rome where her methods have been intro- 
duced. My belief in the value of her theo- 
ries and methods is based upon a conviction 
which this study and observation has deep- 
ened, that her educational principles have a 
firm philosophical and psychological foun- 
dation; a belief which my experiments with 
American children since my return, have still 
more intensified. 

My only excuse, therefore, for adding one 
more to the books which have already been 
published as a result of the growing interest 
in England and America in this remarkable 
woman and her theories, is that in none of 
them have I found such a testing of these 
theories and methods by the principles of 
modern child psychology as to me seems 
necessary for an accurate estimate of their 
value. Neither have I found in them a 
sufficient emphasis placed on the spirit 
which animates the "method." 

1 The Montessori Method of Scientific Pedagogy, trans- 
lated by Anne E. George, New York: Frederick A. 
Stokes Company. 

[viii] 



PREFACE 

There are always two dangers threatening 
any new movement which awakens such 
popular enthusiasm as this has: either 
that it will be crystallised into a hard and 
fast system; or, because too thoughtlessly 
exploited and too over-praised at first, that 
it will suffer the fate of many earlier methods, 
which, unable to meet the expectations 
aroused in the public mind by uncritical 
enthusiasts, have been loudly hailed only 
later to sink into oblivion. From the be- 
ginning of my interest in this Italian doctor 
and teacher I have deprecated the word 
"method" in connection with her, for noth- 
ing so fixed can properly describe anything 
so fluid as her own attitude of mind. I 
have also deprecated the hasty adoption 
of these methods before there is in this 
country a body of teachers who have been 
trained under Dr. Montessori, for I feel 
that we should emulate her patience, her 
untiring devotion, her readiness to give up 
years of her life in order to test her beliefs 
by experience. 

It is therefore with a genuine desire to 

make clear what seems to me to be the 

psychological basis of her methods as well 

as to summarise and interpret the principles 

[ix] 



PREFACE 

underlying them, so that the spirit which 
animates them may become a living force 
in America, that I offer this study of these 
principles and of their concrete embodiment 
in the material now so familiar to the Ameri- 
can public. I also make some suggestions 
for possible amplification and adaptation 
to the pressing needs of our own country 
which are the outcome of an experiment 
made last summer in using the material with 
a group of American children. 

I also venture to hope that such an inter- 
pretation of Dr. Montessori's educational 
theories and practice will disabuse the minds 
of its readers of many misconceptions which 
have arisen since the first introduction into 
America of the "Montessori Method." 

Acknowledgments are due to Miss Anne 
E. George, first Montessori directress in 
America and translator of "The Montessori 
Method/' who by her enthusiastic and prac- 
tical help changed my first general interest 
in the subject into a keen desire to go to 
Italy and study Dr. Montessori and her 
work. My thanks are due, also, to several 
others who have read the manuscript and 
proofs and helped me with their suggestions 
and criticisms. 

W 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

PREFACE . . •. . . vii 

I THE FOUNDER AND THE SCHOOL . 1 

"A socialised school in a socialised home." 

II CONTROLLING IDEAS; LIBERTY 
THROUGH DISCIPLINED ACTIV- 
ITY AND INDEPENDENCE ... 17 

" The triumph of discipline is through the 
conquest of liberty and independence" 

III SELF-DISCIPLINE THROUGH OBEDI- 

ENCE 35 

" To obey it is not only necessary to wish 
to obey but to know how." 

IV THE TWO-FOLD AIM OF EDUCA- 

TION 49 

"Our aim in education is two-fold — bio- 
logical and social." 

V PHYSICAL EDUCATION 61 

" The aim of education is to develop the 
energies." 

VI SENSORY EDUCATION 72 

"A game is a free activity ordered to a 
definite end." 

VII FROM SENSATIONS TO IDEAS ... 103 

"The greatest triumph of our education 
should be to bring about the spontaneous 
progress of the child" 

[xi] 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

VIII "THE THREE R'S" IN A NEW FORM . 114 
"A great deal of time and intellectual 
force are lost in this world because the 
false seems great and the truth so 
small. " 

IX THE MONTESSORI PARENT . . ._ . 134 

11 The social environment of individuals 
in the process of education is the home." 

X THE MONTESSORI TEACHER. . . .154 

" There exists only one real biological man- 
ifestation — the living individual; and 
toward single individuals, one by one 
observed, education must be directed." 

XI THE MONTESSORI MOVEMENT AND 

ITS CRITICS 181 

"An elementary school loyal to the princi- 
ples of respect for the freedom of the 
child and its spontaneous manifes- 
tation." 

XII THE DEEPER MESSAGE OF MONTES- 
SORI 204 

"Humanity growing in the spirit accord- 
ing to its own deep laws." 

XIII A SUGGESTION FOR THE SUMMER. . 213 

"A Montessori Playhouse." 

XIV A SUGGESTION FOR THE SUBURBS. . 229 

" The property of the collectivity." 



[xii] 



A GUIDE TO 
THE MONTESSORI METHOD 



A GUIDE TO THE 
MONTESSORI METHOD 

CHAPTER I 

THE FOUNDER AND THE SCHOOL 
" A socialised school in a socialised home." 

No one who has not visited Rome within 
the last decade and studied with more than 
a tourist's ephemeral interest the modern 
city which overshadows the ruins of the past 
can have any idea of the social, political and 
educational renaissance which has come to it. 
, I beg any reader of this book to put away 
at once that conception of Rome as "The 
Mother of Races," "The Eternal City," 
"The Niobe of Nations," which has grown 
up in his mind as a result of the emphasis 
usually given to Rome in her relation to the 
past in history and art, and obtain instead 
a vivid impression of her as the capital of a 
strong, young nation, full of vitality and en- 
thusiasm, ready to play a leading part in 
the world drama. 

[1] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

If Rome is eternal it is because she is 
ever young; her Janus gate is open to the 
East and she must be thought of as in the 
van of the forward movement of our time. 
Unless one has such an attitude of mind, 
the first sight of the enormous monument to 
Vittorio Emmanuele comes as a rude shock 
for it seems an example of vandalism as it 
haughtily usurps the first place in any view 
of the city and almost rudely shoves into 
the background those famous relics of me- 
dieval and ancient times, the Capitol, the 
Forum and the Colosseum. But to one who 
studies Rome as she really is, this magnifi- 
cent expression of gratitude, this tribute to 
Vittorio as her emancipator is suggestive. 
United Italy, a city saved from fever by the 
dyking of the Tiber, the Campagna freed 
from malaria, are some of the gifts of that 
great soldier and patriot, gifts which make 
possible the clean, hygienic, expanding Rome 
of to-day. 

There are many men and women who are 
making this city what she is rapidly becom- 
ing, the real capital of modern Italy; but to 
those who are interested in the education 
and welfare of children, Maria Montessori 
stands out pre-eminently as a noble example 
[2] 



THE FOUNDER AND THE SCHOOL 

of the New Woman, one whose genius and 
wonderfully sympathetic insight into the 
heart and mind of a child have awakened the 
interest of the whole world in her theory 
for the education of children. 

The great engineering feats which resulted 
in the dyking of the Tiber and the draining 
of the Campagna in the last quarter of the 
19th century made possible not only the 
expansion of Rome beyond the walls which 
had confined it so long, but the utilisation 
for building purposes of land along the banks 
of the Tiber within the city gates which 
heretofore had been plague spots of disease 
due to the overflowing of this river. As so 
often happens the first effect of these two 
engineering feats was a feverish activity in 
real estate transactions followed by the hasty 
erection of poorly planned and cheaply built 
blocks of buildings in all parts of the city 
and its new suburbs, until the "boom" so 
thoughtlessly created caused about twenty 
years ago a panic and a complete collapse 
of building activities. At this moment 
Edoardo Talamo, seeing the possibilities of 
expansion, seized his opportunity and by 
the establishment of the Real Estate Asso- 
ciation of the "Beni Stabili" and by his 
[3] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

design for model apartments which he calls 
the "Casa Moderna" not only did much to 
help solve the great housing problem, but 
turned the tide of ruin into a wave of 
prosperity, which has not yet run its course. 

About twenty years ago Dr. Montessori 
was a young girl of great beauty and charm 
who had recently been graduated as a Doctor 
of Medicine, the first woman to receive 
that degree from the University of Rome. 
Her first medical practice was in a clinic 
and hospital for deficient children connected 
with the University of Rome where she had 
an opportunity to test upon these children 
the theories she already possessed as to the 
possibilities of education. Her belief that 
mental deficiency was a pedagogical rather 
than a medical problem was justified by the 
results obtained, and a course of lectures 
on the education of the feeble-minded 
which she gave to teachers resulted in the 
establishment of the state schools for defec- 
tives which she directed for over two years. 

After visits to London and Paris, where 
she studied in the hospitals for the feeble- 
minded, she gave herself up with her usual 
whole-hearted enthusiasm to teaching defi- 
cients and training their teachers. Her basic 
[4] 



THE FOUNDER, AND THE SCHOOL 

principle of setting free the personality of 
each deficient child by methods adapted to 
him became such a controlling idea that she 
reached the conclusion that similar methods 
applied to normal children would have 
equally marvelous results. She then began 
a more thorough study both of remedial 
and normal pedagogy, registering as a stu- 
dent of philosophy in the University, where 
she made a most exhaustive study of the 
works of her great predecessors Itard and 
Seguin, and the Italian masters of peda- 
gogical anthropology, Sergi and Di Giovanni. 
These studies, combined with other re- 
searches into pedagogical anthropology in 
the schools, resulted in her appointment as 
lecturer on anthropology in the University 
of Rome. The course of lectures she gave 
there was later published and has now been 
translated into English. 1 

The year 1907 is an important one in the 
history of the Montessori movement for 
it marks the moment Dr. Montessori, who 
had up to this time worked along separate 
lines, was invited to form the first "Casa dei 
Bambini" or " Children's House" in the 

1 Pedagogical Anthropology, translated by Frederic 
Taber Cooper. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co. 

[5] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

model tenement built by the Beni Stabili 
Association in the quarter of San Lorenzo. 
This quarter of the city, just outside the 
gate of that name, was one of the poorest 
in Rome and had suffered most from the 
collapse of the building scheme spoken of 
above. The poorly built and badly planned 
dwellings erected at the time the specula- 
tive fever was at its height had been diverted 
from their original purpose and were now 
occupied by the poorest and most vicious 
of the people, who herded together in de- 
fiance of all sanitary and moral laws. This 
association had bought up many such 
blocks and by judicious demolition and re- 
construction had transformed them into neat, 
hygienic apartments, which could be rented 
at a low cost. It was Talamo's brilliant 
idea to make the child the central thought 
in these new homes, to plan for his health, 
education and care during the * long day 
while his parents were absent as wage earn- 
ers; and to develop in these parents, as 
residents, through their love for their chil- 
dren, respect for and care of the property. 
The psychological moment that saw the 
opening of the first model tenement of the 
Beni Stabili was that of the completion of 
[6] 



THE FOUNDER AND THE SCHOOL 

Montessori's long years of study and teach- 
ing; and the invitation to her to direct the 
schools of this association in these buildings 
was an inspired act which made possible the 
spread of her ideas all over the world. For 
in the various Case dei Bambini or Children's 
Houses which quickly followed that first one 
in the quarter of San Lorenzo, Montessori 
again had an opportunity to test her basic 
principle of freeing the personality and 
latent energy of the child and helping his 
self education through materials and meth- 
ods scientifically adapted to his individual 
needs. The fifteen years that had elapsed 
since her initial effort with deficient children 
had trained a remarkable creative genius 
able to mold together into one rational 
system of education the best that had been 
discovered in the past. She herself says 
that fifty years of medico-pedagogical study 
by Itard, Seguin and herself are embodied 
in her system. It is also an evolution from 
the work of her great forerunners in educa- 
tion, Rousseau, Pestalozzi, Herbart and 
Froebel. 

It is because I believe so strongly in the 
value of this experiment as a social move- 
ment that I am desirous that American 
[7] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

students of Montessori should understand 
the practical, philanthropic work of the 
Beni Stabili Association as well as the edu- 
cational principles of Montessori. During 
the six or seven years since the formation 
of this company, not only has the practical 
foresight of its promoters been justified 
(for I was told that dividends of 7% were 
paid on its stock) , but the social necessity 
for co-operation in modern city life has 
been proved, as each new block provides 
more and more for the common life of its 
tenants. The school in each block, which 
was open to the children of all the tenants, 
had resident teachers ready to advise with 
each parent and was supported by the fund 
originally set aside for repairs, which the 
new interest and thrift of the tenants made 
unnecessary. It was only a succession of 
logical steps which led to the addition of 
baths, infirmaries, rooms for the storage of 
bicycles and baby-carriages, a laundry 
open to each tenant in turn, a room with 
sewing-machines free to all and finally a 
common kitchen where most of the cooking 
could be done. The officers of this asso- 
ciation realise that conditions differ in 
various parts of Rome where the populace is 
[8] 



THE FOUNDER AND THE SCHOOL 

grouped into separate classes more than 
with us, and have planned three or four 
types of blocks : one for the very poor, where 
both parents are wage earners; one for the 
lower middle class where the father is a 
constant and the mother an occasional wage 
earner; one also for the upper class whose 
members can afford apartments with every 
luxury and perfection of detail. They have 
thus avoided the mistake made twenty 
years ago when large and expensive struc- 
tures were erected in portions of the city 
where the poor congregate, which had 
proved to be unsuited to their needs and 
therefore were subdivided and sub-let until 
they became centers of congestion, disease, 
and even vice and crime. In all these 
blocks whether for the poor or the rich I 
found the welfare of the child had been the 
central thought in their construction and in 
each a large measure of co-operation was 
provided for. Although it is not possible 
in a great city like New York or London, 
where the area is so limited and the popu- 
lation so immense, to afford the ground 
space which is used in Rome for one of these 
ideal tenements, it would be quite feasible 
to plan a socialised school on the "sky 
" [9] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

scraper" order with two or three floors in 
it set aside for the school, teacher's apart- 
ments, library, bath and infirmary and with 
a garden or out-of-door school on the roof. 
There are, however, many cities in this 
country and in England, like the " Garden 
Cities," that can with profit study their 
own housing problem in the light of what 
this association has accomplished. 

At the time of this writing, Dr. Montessori 
has unfortunately no connection with the 
Case dei Bambini of the Beni Stabili or with 
the Municipal schools. She has therefore 
no voice in the selection of teachers and 
should not be held responsible for faulty 
methods which have been allowed to creep 
in. The Convent School in Via Giusti 
and her own school in Via Principessa 
Clotilde are the only ones at present under 
her direct supervision. Before these words 
are in print, I trust that plans now maturing 
which will give her control over other schools 
will have gone into effect. The Convent 
School has been so often described that its 
main features are familiar to Americans. 
It is a most interesting and significant fact 
that among the most loyal supporters and 
enthusiastic followers of La Dottoressa are 
[103 



THE FOUNDER AND THE SCHOOL 

numbered these missionary sisters of St. 
Frances who have opened their convent to 
her, given part of their buildings and ground 
over for a school, and harboured visiting 
sisters from many lands who are learning 
the method with a view of introducing it all 
over the world. Many of the children in 
this school are orphans from the Messina 
earthquake; others come from poor families 
in the neighbourhood. The high vaulted 
schoolroom, the beautiful cloisters enclosing 
two quadrangles attractively laid out with 
trees, shrubs and flower beds, the high en- 
closing walls, create an ideal environment to 
which the children seem to respond. 

In strong contrast to this school is the 
one which the Doctor herself directs in her 
own beautiful apartment near the Piazza 
del Populo. Here the group is small, se- 
lected from amongst the children of per- 
sonal friends and admirers, and the children 
are older than those in the other schools. 
Before long it is to be hoped that a record 
of the result of this experiment as it carries 
the principles up into the elementary school, 
will be published. 

Maria Montessori so far in her life has 
gone steadily on, giving in turn to each 
[11] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

problem as it was presented to her that con- 
centrated, absorbed attention which is so 
characteristic of her. In addition to a 
wonderful, magnetic personality, she pos- 
sesses creative genius, an almost religious 
consecration to her life work, and a prac- 
tical ability to embody her ideas in con- 
crete form. That her principles are uni- 
versal and general is shown, I think, in the 
variety of forms in which they have found 
expression as well as in their adaptation to 
manifold needs. Not only the feeble-minded, 
not only the children brought together for 
care and training from the homes of poor 
wage earners, but those from well-to-do or 
luxurious homes respond to her teaching 
and develop most wonderfully in self-control 
and liberty of thought and action. I there- 
fore believe that although America cannot, 
at present anyway, have the direct inspira- 
tion of Maria Montessori's personality, the 
universal appeal found in her spirit and 
controlling ideas will be responded to by 
our parents as well as our educators. 

Since these words were written the oppor- 
tunity has been provided for our American 
and English teachers to obtain training in 
Rome under Dr. Montessori and to observe 
[12] 



THE FOUNDER AND THE SCHOOL 

and practise in the Montessori schools 
there. 

The psychological moment is here and 
now in the United States as well as in 
England as it was in Rome in 1907. A wave 
of unrest has spread over the whole country. 
Our system of education from the kinder- 
garten up through the university is open to 
attack as never before. The chapter from 
the book of Ezekiel, so aptly quoted by 
Dr. Montessori in her book, has its appli- 
cation to us also. Our dry bones of edu- 
cational practice need the breath of the 
spirit to pass over them and cause them to 
arise and unite into a new and living organ- 
ism. Destructive criticism is always unwise 
because it only creates a feeling of dissatis- 
faction without suggesting any remedy. 
Our books, newspapers and magazine articles 
have been full of such destructive criticism 
until, if one reads widely, the conclusion 
seems unavoidable that educationally we 
are rapidly going to the dogs. These 
problems and doubts, once confined to the 
teachers alone, are now shared by the tre- 
mendous reading public of our day, and 
parents as well as teachers are asking what 
is to be done. Much has already been 
[13] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

accomplished in our country; more than in 
Italy we have our classes for deficients, our 
vocational schools, our "intelligence tests" 
for entering pupils, our trained educational 
psychologists whose alert minds are seeking 
the answer. But as yet it is all somewhat 
chaotic and disorganised. We need just 
at the moment a uniform principle of uni- 
versal application to which psychologists, 
educators and parents will alike respond. 
If Maria Montessori can give us such a 
principle and such an object lesson in its 
demonstration as her didactic material, 
so called, provides for, let us send our best 
to sit at her feet in Rome open-minded and 
sympathetic, that they may absorb some of 
her spirit, her insight and her wisdom. 
Then let them return to us able to point 
out the proper application of this spirit to 
our own problem, the American child. 

Let us avoid if we can a repetition of 
the history of the kindergarten movement. 
The genius of Froebel was after his death 
curbed and fettered by devotees who held 
blindly to a system which seemed on the 
surface so simple. The games, gifts and 
occupations he devised appeared to have 
in the minds of his disciples a kind of sanc- 

[14] 



THE FOUNDER AND THE SCHOOL 

tity, so that it seemed to them a desecration 
to make any changes, and the portrait of 
Froebel himself that as a necessary feature 
of each kindergarten was supposed to in- 
spire both teacher and children, was really 
a symbol of the slavish adherence of his 
followers to the letter rather than the 
spirit of his doctrines. Then when "all had 
found the seed, " the system instead of the 
genius of Froebel was seized upon by half- 
taught young girls, and the whole movement 
fell into disrepute until it was rescued by 
the educational psychologist and real edu- 
cator and given back to us as Froebel 
would wish, not fixed in the dress he gave 
it, but garbed in a manner suited to the 
children of our own time. 

Let us take warning from this history and 
protect the Montessori method from a like 
fate by guarding it from hasty, uncon- 
sidered, too literal adoption. Let us study 
Dr. Montessori' s spirit and controlling ideas 
and then test them by modern child psy- 
chology. Let us use her wonderful material 
as not abusing it but with flexibility and 
freedom while keeping fast hold of the 
principles it embodies. In this way educa- 
tors and parents can work together, in the 
[15] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

school and home alike, to give our children 
their birthright of freedom in this century of 
democracy and, by setting free their per- 
sonality and leading them to self-control, 
self-training and many-sided development, 
teach them how to utilise the tremendous 
fund of nervous energy latent in every 
child. 



[16] 



CHAPTER II 

CONTROLLING IDEAS; LIBERTY THROUGH 

DISCIPLINED ACTIVITY AND 

INDEPENDENCE 

"The triumph of discipline is through the conquest of 
liberty and independence." 

The previous chapter contains frequent 
allusions to the controlling ideas or prin- 
ciples which have inspired Dr. Montessori 
in the invention and construction of her 
didactic material, but a fuller study of 
them should precede any discussion of this 
material. In her book, "The Montessori 
Method of Scientific Pedagogy/' these prin- 
ciples are, of course, fully set forth, but it 
may prove helpful if they are here brought 
together in orderly fashion and studied by 
themselves. It is always much easier to 
follow a method blindly than to make our 
very own the principles which it illustrates, 
and this material in its very appeal to the 
parent and teacher on account of its sim- 
plicity, practicality and concreteness may, 
in the minds of many, take the first place 
[17] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

and be adopted without thought of the 
spirit behind it. 

Dr. Montessori emphasises over and over 
again these ideas: that the personality 
of the child must be liberated by methods 
adapted to his individual needs; that his 
inherent nervous energy must be conducted 
into channels of organised activity; that lib- 
erty through activity must be the ideal for 
discipline; that the child's natural love of 
work for the work's sake and the very joy of 
doing it should be given a free field for its 
development; that true education involves 
self-training and is to that extent auto- 
education; that the part of the teacher 
is to suggest, to guide, but not to dictate; 
that reward comes from the work itself and 
not from anything extraneous: that true 
self-discipline makes our so-called prizes 
and punishments unnecessary; that before 
any group work with children, there should 
come the complete understanding between 
each individual of the group and its director 
so that each responds; that fundamental 
training in righteousness begins when the 
child spontaneously and happily follows the 
laws of his own development; that obedience, 
instead of being the breaking of the child's 
[18] 



CONTROLLING IDEAS 

will to subject it to that of another, is 
really the complete expansion of his whole 
nature when he not only desires but knows 
how to follow a command. Children "are 
virtuous because they exercise patience in 
repeating their exercises, long-suffering in 
yielding to the commands and desires of 
others, good in rejoicing in the well-being of 
others without jealousy or rivalry; they live 
doing good in joyousness of heart and in 
peace, and they are eminently, marvellously 
industrious." 

Dr. Montessori would not for a moment 
wish us to believe all these ideas are origi- 
nal with her, for of course many of them 
are implied or expressed in all educational 
theories, but I think she can claim to be the 
first one to give to the world a rational 
theory of education based upon true 
biological, anthropological and sociological 
laws, together with the concrete embodi- 
ment of this theory in a set of material 
which has been tested by years of study and 
experience. 

Physicians, psychologists and educators 
are alike interested in the right develop- 
ment of child life from, differing points of 
view and usually each sees the problem from 
[19] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

his own particular angle of vision; but in 
Dr. Montessori we have the rare combina- 
tion of a physician of wide experience, a 
psychologist and anthropologist of deserved 
reputation, and an educator who has de- 
voted years of her life to the education of 
children and the training of teachers. This 
remarkable threefold experience has come 
to a woman of creative and inventive genius 
and of tireless enthusiasm, capable of devot- 
ing all her energies with intense concentra- 
tion to the special problem she is seeking to 
solve. If we compare her life history with 
what we know of that of Rousseau, Pesta- 
lozzi or Froebel, we appreciate its breadth. 
Rousseau, the brilliant theorist whose ideas 
startled and moulded the thoughts not only 
of the France of his day, but of our own 
country, could not put his own theories 
into practice. Pestalozzi's genius was con- 
fined to a little German village and ham- 
pered by poverty and ill health. Froebel, 
probably the greatest genius of the three, 
had intuitive understanding of child life, 
but living as he did a century ago could not 
benefit by the scientific expansion of knowl- 
edge which the twentieth century has 
inaugurated. To Dr. Montessori then, who 
[20] 



CONTROLLING IDEAS 

has enjoyed the opportunities lacking to 
her predecessors, we can listen with respect 
as we do to any specialist who has by genius 
and experience placed himself at the head 
of his profession. Let us study in detail the 
principles underlying her system of educa- 
tion with sympathetic, respectful attention, 
with an open mind and with no spirit of 
carping criticism. 

The key-note is liberty, in the broadest, 
fullest meaning of that often misunder- 
stood term. Liberty to her means the libera- 
tion of the life power within the child to 
untrammelled, spontaneous, manifestation 
within the limitations of its biological and 
social conditions; a universal principle which 
as yet has only been partially apprehended 
or applied by us in our system of education. 
As long as the teacher is the dominating 
force in the school so long will there be some 
form of slavery rather than liberty. When, 
as in this method, the teacher takes a second- 
ary place in order to observe and experi- 
ment, then true liberty for the child really 
begins. This idea of liberty is biological, for 
it is based on the nature of the child as a 
human being rather than as a plant or an 
animal. The child is not only born help- 
[21] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

less but comes into the world as a social 
individual, a member of society, so his ac- 
tivity is limited both by his characteristic 
helplessness and by his relation to other hu- 
man beings as that of a flower or an insect 
is not. A system of education which has 
this watchword of liberty as its basis must 
help the child conquer these obstacles and 
lead him towards independence, and must 
seek to surround him with those conditions 
best adapted to the perfect development 
of his whole personality, including his phys- 
ical, mental and spiritual life. Biologically 
speaking, there is only one real manifesta- 
tion, the living individual, not the class or 
race, which are abstract classifications ; there- 
fore education should concern itself more 
and more with the observation and training 
of single individuals. Education thus con- 
ceived includes the active help given to as- 
sist the normal expansion of the complete 
life of the child, both in soul and body, the 
care not to stifle the individual manifes- 
tations of this life force, and the patient 
waiting for the gradual flowering of each 
personality. 

Again, the biological conception of liberty, 
as the freeing of the life force, regards envi- 
[22] 



CONTROLLING IDEAS 

ronment as a secondary rather than a pri- 
mary factor. Dr. Montessori acknowledges 
her debt to De Vries, the brilliant botanist, 
whose theory of mutation or change as 
opposed to variation of species has guided 
her thought along parallel lines. Environ- 
ment can modify because it can help or 
hinder development, but it cannot create. 
It can hold life within a certain limit and 
control it by fixed laws, but it cannot orig- 
inate. Therefore, biologically considered, 
education is limited as it works on the life 
force through environment. We can act on 
the variation but not on the mutation; we 
can modify but not create. The stronger 
the life force, the less it is affected by en- 
vironment; on the other hand, the feebler 
the native power and capacity, the greater 
is the opportunity for modification by its 
environment. Such a theory helps us to 
understand the anomalies and the apparent 
paradoxes in education. It explains not 
only Shakespeare but the many men of his- 
tory of whom we learn in our schools who 
have apparently succeeded in spite of their 
schooling. We understand also how human 
progress persists in spite of error and wrong 
forms of education and religion. Envi- 
[23] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

ronment, then, can favor or stifle life and 
so is an important factor in education, as 
we shall see more fully when we study it as 
a feature of the method; but the great truth 
is, as Montessori says, "Life is a superb god- 
dess, always advancing and always over- 
coming obstacles which environment may 
place in the way of her triumph. " It is life, 
therefore, that we should cherish and nur- 
ture, "Life for which our spirits pant." 

Liberty thus thought of involves activity, 
but that activity must be disciplined, and 
at this point we arrive at another great 
controlling idea, that of discipline through 
liberty. 

Just as our minds were expanded to re- 
ceive a new conception of liberty, so now 
they must be enlarged again to this in- 
spiring conception of discipline, formerly a 
bugbear of the school and the nursery. I 
wish nurses and governesses could have a 
course of training in this method of dis- 
cipline so that the careful work begun each 
day in our kindergartens and schools by 
thoughtful, trained teachers would not be 
undone as the thoughtless, uneducated nurse 
greets the child as he leaves the schoolroom 
with the fatal words, "Have you been 
[24] 



CONTROLLING IDEAS 

naughty? " or threatens him on his way 
home with the policeman or some other 
bugaboo. Last summer while I was using 
the material with a charming group of 
American children, the English nurse of one 
of the little boys said to me, with a real 
desire to help me, "If John doesn't do as 
you wish, tell him he will have to take 
castor-oil. " 

I feel so strongly the necessity for a reform 
of this abuse that I would welcome a tract, 
addressed to nurses, that would in simple 
language set forth a contrary principle, that 
of expansion rather than repression. 

As liberty means freeing the life force, 
so discipline founded on liberty must mean 
ordered activity. An individual is his own 
true master and therefore disciplined only 
when he can regulate his own conduct to 
follow some rule of life. This concept of 
discipline, as ordered activity founded on 
liberty, is so opposed to the conventional 
one that it takes time and thought to under- 
stand it aright and apply it properly; but 
it contains a great educational principle. 
While I was in Rome I visited several 
schools, not under the direct supervision 
of Dr. Montessori, where her material was 
[25] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

at hand for the children to use and where 
the teachers showed a superficial knowledge 
of the system, but where a lack of complete 
apprehension of this principle of discipline 
was bringing chaos rather than order; thus 
completely reversing the ideal set up. One 
teacher said to me, in perfectly good faith, 
"There is no discipline in the Montessori 
schools, " and I was not surprised to see her 
room in disorder and the children dissipating 
their energies in aimless and superficial 
play. 

If liberty means the freeing of the fife 
force within each individual human being, 
discipline means its control under the special 
bonds and restrictions which the human fife, 
helpless in its infancy and restricted by the 
rights of other human beings, must feel. If 
we wish to gain freedom in our chosen work 
as mechanic, as artist or as teacher, we must 
first gain control through repression of all 
useless or dangerous movements. A famous 
artist once summed up for me in a few sug- 
gestive sentences his life history. First as a 
child, the free spontaneous effort to express 
what he saw with no idea of the laws of art 
or of its limitations; then the years of patient 
submission to those laws and limitations 
[26] 



CONTROLLING IDEAS 

until he became master of his technique; 
then in his prime came the joy of perfect 
freedom as his hand, master of the brush, 
expressed almost automatically the creations 
of his artistic soul. It is that joy in life 
which comes from mastery of self, and there- 
fore perfect freedom, that should come to 
each child. "Ye shall know the truth and 
the truth shall make you free." 

Because of these bonds, Dr. Montessori 
tells us that. the liberty of the child should 
have as its limit the collective interest; as 
its form what we universally consider good 
breeding. Therefore this principle of the 
free, spontaneous expression of the child's 
personality has as a controlling or necessary 
implication the opposite idea of inhibition. 
All acts useless, dangerous, or opposed to 
good breeding should be as vigorously 
repressed as all acts conducive to the child's 
freedom within these limits should be al- 
lowed. The child comes thus early to dis- 
tinguish between right and wrong, good 
and evil; between the Kantian imperative, 
"I must," and the Mosaic restrictive, 
"Thou shalt not"; and it is consequently 
easy to implant in his childish mind that 
joyous realisation of duty as our own contri- 
[27] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

bution to life which Wordsworth gives us in 
his famous ode: 

"Serene will be our days and bright, 
And happy will our nature be, 
When love is an unerring guide 
And joy its own security.' ' 

A full realisation of discipline as prepara- 
tion for completely ordered mental, physical 
and spiritual liberty involves a true under- 
standing of the value of work as a factor in 
our development. Fundamentally, we are 
active. We come into this world with a 
fund of energy, greater or less, which is 
our inheritance. This energy shows itself 
in the baby in a mass of chaotic, unorgan- 
ised activities together with a few instinc- 
tive and automatic actions necessary to life, 
such as breathing, sucking, crying and so 
on. The progress of the child is from this 
ill-regulated, unco-ordinated, unrestrained 
activity to the habits and ordered power of 
maturity. But a human being is always 
dynamic, not static; rest for him, therefore, 
means ordered movement, not cessation 
of activity. 

"Rest is not quitting this earthly career, 
Rest is the fitting of each to his sphere." 
[28] 



CONTROLLING IDEAS 

The true rest for our lungs is normal breath- 
ing; for our heart, the natural beating of its 
blood-pressure; and for our muscles, orderly 
action. Experiment has shown that there 
is less fatigue for a child in organised play 
than in restless, disorderly activity, provided 
always, that such organised play is the ex- 
pression of his own spontaneous impulse. 

Dr. Montessori in her belief in the multi- 
plication of the energies of the child and in 
her theory that there is no fatigue in work 
where there is no strain or worry, is in ac- 
cord with our own psychologists, James and 
Thorndike, who have expressed similar ideas. 

The modern school, well equipped, with 
every opportunity in it for developing the 
organised yet spontaneous activity of the 
child, should rest and invigorate instead of 
fatiguing him, or making him nervous. 
For, in every such school, provision is made 
for that natural repetition of exercises for 
which the child instinctively feels the need, 
which we call "drill," and by means of 
which his individuality is set into well- 
ordered freedom. There is also provision for 
the slow execution of such exercises, for just 
as the child's scale of distance is so differ- 
ent from ours, so is his time-sense. He 
[29] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

should not be hurried as he does something 
with great care and deliberation for the 
first time, neither should we hasten to help 
him. When, therefore, parents announce 
their determination to keep their children 
at home and not send them to kindergartens 
or schools until the age of eight in order 
that they may attain a perfect physical 
condition, they show a lack of knowledge 
of the union between the physical and the 
mental sides of a child's nature and of the 
truth that there must be a wise provision 
for the mental life as well as the physical 
life that his brain may function properly to 
be the instrument of his expanding con- 
sciousness. 

From the consideration of liberty as the 
free development of the life force, an activity 
that is free when it is disciplined and realises 
the laws and limitations of its nature and its 
environment, we turn to the third factor in 
this mastery and free expression of self : that 
is independence. True freedom means in- 
dependence; we must then direct the first 
active manifestations of the child's liberty 
so that he may gain independence. At this 
point, at the risk of tiresome repetition, we 
must be reminded that this biological rather 
[30] 



CONTROLLING IDEAS 

than legal conception of liberty considers 
the child as a human being who in his in- 
fancy, unlike plants and animals, is abso- 
lutely dependent. John Fiske was the first 
to recognise the value of the long period of 
infancy in the human being in relation to 
his development, as it gives him opportunity 
to free himself from the bonds of those in- 
stinctive and reflex acts which hold the 
animal down, and to gain in their place new 
co-ordinations and habits, which gradually 
supplant the random expression of that ner- 
vous energy of life force so characteristic of 
the baby. 

"As helpless as a weaned child" tenderly 
suggests that first period of infancy. But 
parents and nurses who love that very help- 
lessness of little children and delight to serve 
it, prolong that period uselessly and wrong- 
fully. "He who is served is limited in his 
independence." The child who does not 
act will not learn how. When we do for a 
child instead of helping him to do for him- 
self we are thwarting a deep-rooted and 
valuable instinct. The child's cry, U I want 
to do it myself/ 7 is the natural expression 
of an activity which should be developed, not 
repressed. It is always easier to be a nurse 
[31] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

than an educator, but if we as parents or 
teachers yield to our own desire to serve 
rather than train we only hamper the child 
and hold him back on the road to liberty 
through independence and keep him from 
the joy of self mastery. This is a lesson 
especially necessary to be learned by an in- 
creasingly large class of parents whose chil- 
dren come to our schools hampered by their 
dependence on their nurses, and are unable 
to perform for themselves those simple 
personal acts which it should be perfectly 
natural for them to do. The beautiful ap- 
plication of this principle in the button- 
ing and lacing frames which are such a 
unique feature of the didactic material 
should be appreciated by parents, nurses 
and teachers alike. 

This feeling of dependence, of pleasure in 
being served, so fostered now-a-days but 
really so foreign to the child's nature, creates 
in him, unconsciously at first, that false 
classification of work as menial and non- 
menial which is so opposed to a true demo- 
cratic spirit. Our little aristocrats of the 
schoolroom, whose nurses, forgetting that 
we should be made free to serve, dress and 
undress them, lead them by the hand and 
[32] 



CONTROLLING IDEAS 

wait servilely on them, are growing up in 
a false idea of service and of work which 
is our heritage. Growth and independence 
involve that true discipline which comes 
through work. For as Montessori well says, 
"Discipline is a path not a fact, it is a means 
not an end," and the very beginning of it 
appears when the child, keenly interested in 
doing, sets himself to the accomplishment of 
a definite task. It is attained indirectly 
through the direction of the child's own 
spontaneous efforts; it needs for its perfec- 
tion the repetition of a series of complete 
acts through work which he instinctively 
desires and toward which he naturally 
turns and by means of which, as he gains 
more and more power and freedom, he sets 
his personality in order and sees new possi- 
bilities of growth. I had an interesting 
illustration of this truth in my own class 
last summer. Nancy, a child of a little 
more than three, as an only child in a group 
of fond uncles, aunts and a grandmother, 
had become very dependent. When she 
first came to our play-house she was afraid 
to do anything as the other children did, to 
close her eyes, to use the material. But 
in a very few days the delights of freedom 
[33] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

and of a sense of power began to dawn in her 
childish mind. Naturally and without 
strain of any kind she tried her little powers, 
and grew more and more independent and 
disciplined through happy liberty in activ- 
ity, An only child, the limitations of the 
collective rights had not come to her be- 
fore, but she responded beautifully to the 
discipline which comes through group life. 



[34] 



CHAPTER III 

SELF-DISCIPLINE THROUGH OBEDIENCE 

"To obey it is not only necessary to wish to obey but 
to know how." 

That Dr. Montessori's deepest message 
is a spiritual one, that her highest ideal for 
humanity is that of a being fully developed 
physically, mentally, morally, and spiritually 
through the conquest of liberty and the 
mastery of self must be evident, I believe, to 
anyone who studies her book fairly and 
sympathetically. But, like Browning, she 
believes flesh helps soul quite as much as 
soul helps flesh. Like him she propounds 
this test: 

"Thy body at its best, 
How far can that project thy soul 
on its lone way?" 

Because as a physician she sees so clearly 
the laws of physical life and growth, because 
as a psychologist she knows the intimate 
connection between body, soul and spirit, 
she finds an element of moral training in 
[35] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

the very simplest and earliest exercises and 
makes no attempt to divorce it and set it 
above motor or sensory or intellectual 
activity. For this reason she has been mis- 
understood, and there are some hasty, 
thoughtless critics who have failed to see 
the spiritual side of the material game or 
activity. For this reason, therefore, it is 
proper for us in our preliminary study of 
her " controlling ideas" to add to our inter- 
pretation of her conception of liberty, dis- 
cipline and independence a fuller exposition 
of her ideas of self-discipline through obedi- 
ence and of her belief in the abolition of 
rewards and punishments as they are 
commonly understood. 

Obedience has too long been thought of as 
the especial virtue of childhood, yet like 
the love of truth it is seldom found in very 
young children and we are only beginning to 
realise, as our knowledge of psychology in- 
creases, the reason why. True, there is an 
instinctive kind of obedience to be found in 
children, but in its higher form it is a complex 
thing to be arrived at through the develop- 
ment of our will as well as of our mental 
power. It contains two factors, the desire 
to do something, and the ability to perform 
[36] 



DISCIPLINE THROUGH OBEDIENCE 

it. That Dr. Montessori's theory of edu- 
cation includes as an essential feature 
moral training will be seen later as we 
follow in detail her method for motor, 
sensory and intellectual development and 
see how in each case the will is trained both 
to activity and to inhibition. The child is 
not only having his senses refined, his power 
of discrimination and observation enlarged, 
but through his liberty of choice, through 
his conquest of freedom, he is led along the 
path that leads to real obedience. Parents 
and teachers too often diagnose as a spirit 
of naughtiness or willful disobedience that 
lack of power in a child to respond to a 
command which he manifests either because 
he does not understand it or because he is 
unable to execute it. Often too the child's 
undeveloped sense of time and space is 
inadequate for a proper response to the 
command "go at once," "obey instantly"; 
commands given before we are sure that the 
child knows exactly what is expected of him 
or that he has the will-power to perform it. 

Dr. Montessori finds three periods in this 

development of intelligent obedience in a 

child. There is at first a subconscious 

period of what she calls spiritual disorder 

[37] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

when his mind is a blank, when he is what 
might be called psychologically deaf. This 
is the period in which deficient children 
linger and sometimes never grow out of 
because their minds are too undeveloped to 
understand and their mils too weak to 
respond. The second period is found in a 
child when the desire to obey has begun to 
develop, and the mental ability to under- 
stand and the motor power to execute the 
command is partially formed; but through 
lack of the discipline which comes through 
repetition and the control gained by in- 
hibition, he may look as though he under- 
stood the command and would like to obey 
but can only occasionally and spasmodically 
succeed in doing so. In the third period he 
is able to respond at once, and as his sense 
of power grows he loves to prove it and is 
proud that he possesses it. We see an il- 
lustration of this fact in the way a baby 
gradually acquires some habit like that of 
grasping a ball. There is first a period of 
random, spasmodic movements crowned by 
accidental success; the second of occasional 
success bringing pleasure and desire; then the 
third of complete success. This ideal third 
stage in which desire and knowledge bal- 
[38] 



DISCIPLINE THROUGH OBEDIENCE 

ance each other is very slowly reached, so 
what we often call willfulness is really a 
condition of undisciplined will. 

One of the most valuable effects of the 
training received in the Montessori system 
of education comes from the regular, pro- 
gressive development of the will through 
spontaneous choice, so that the true balance 
may be kept between desire and knowledge. 
Psychologists affirm more and more strongly 
that what we mean by will is the whole 
mind active; that is, a mind stimulated 
emotionally to desire, to know, and to do. 
If we can guide a child through these three 
periods from chaos to order, we need not be 
surprised at feats performed by him which 
seem to outsiders little short of marvellous. 

Some of the greatest mistakes in edu- 
cation, I believe, have come from a lack of 
comprehension of what is involved in in- 
telligent, as opposed to instinctive or imita- 
tive, obedience; such errors as have been 
shown, for example, in the demands made 
upon a child for collective or group work 
before a proper relation between him as an 
individual and his teacher has been brought 
about. Athletics afford us an illustration 
of this. The value of team work — of the 
[39] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

mass — in football or basket-ball, comes when 
the response of each member of the team is 
individually obedient to the call of the 
leader while each in turn is strengthened by 
the response of his neighbour. As Kipling 
illustrates, by one of his tales, the strength 
of the wolf is in the pack, and that of the 
pack, in each separate wolf. If we are to 
have each child benefit by group work, we 
must first secure his response as an individual, 
and must be sure that he is in such a state 
of development that he is able to respond 
to the social appeal. Natural rather than 
forced grouping is, therefore, more valuable. 
The extreme of individual teaching, found 
in the Montessori schools, and the approach 
to collective order through the individual 
appeal is, consequently, true to this analysis 
of the real nature of obedience. Another 
illustration from the collective game of 
silence by which all visitors to the schools 
are so impressed, will show more clearly 
what I mean. The great value in this game 
lies not only in its moral training in self- 
control through inhibition, but in the 
spiritual effect of the condition of isolation 
in which it places each child, so creating a 
completely sympathetic relation between 

[40] 



DISCIPLINE THROUGH OBEDIENCE 

him and his teacher. This differentiates it 
from many devices now in use in our schools, 
such as calisthenic exercises, by means of 
which a teacher subdues a noisy class. 
This game does have such an unconscious 
influence and is so far a help to the teacher, 
but it is much more than that. 

Perhaps the children are occupied in all 
sorts of ways in all parts of the room when 
the teacher will quietly go to the black- 
board and write in large, clear script, "Silen- 
zio, " and then as quietly take her seat or 
stand behind the group. One of the older 
children who can read will be the first to 
note this word, and taking it as a personal 
command to himself, will go to the seat 
which habit has trained him to use in group 
exercises, when in collective order. In some 
occult way all catch the spirit of the 
moment and one by one the other chil- 
dren follow his example, each looking to the 
teacher for the personal appeal, while total 
silence, passing like a wave over the children, 
gradually succeeds the pleasant noise of well- 
ordered activity. The teacher sits, herself 
a model of absolute repose; some of the 
children shut their eyes, while others lean 
their heads on the tables, thus isolating 
[41] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

themselves; the room has been darkened, 
and you as an outsider realise that your 
ideal for silence has been imperfect, and that 
you would not have expected or waited 
for that which this teacher has gained 
with such apparent ease. Then, while the 
eyes are closed and the little bodies en- 
tirely relaxed, comes from the teacher the 
low whisper, " Velia, " and a little child under 
three who is near you worms herself out of 
her chair without touching it or the table, so 
perfect is her inhibition, and tiptoes to the 
teacher's side with an expression of joy in 
successful effort upon her face. One by one 
the children rise to this call from out of 
the darkness, and respond with the same 
control over their bodies that you have 
envied in the baby Velia. You ask yourself 
at first, "Is this over-straining of nerves ?" 
Then you realise that instead you have an 
example of perfect discipline; a command 
heard with delight and obeyed joyfully and 
exactly; a true-balance between desire and 
power through knowing how. Such a train- 
ing which makes possible intelligent, individ- 
ual response to the call of the leader dif- 
ferentiates the crowd from the mob, the 
disciplined army from the untrained mass. 
[42] 



DISCIPLINE THROUGH OBEDIENCE 

I also saw in Rome an example of the old- 
fashioned, unpedagogical group or collect- 
ive work. Fifty children were seated in 
rows on benches at desks to which they came 
and which they left with automatic preci- 
sion at a sharp command from the teacher. 
On the desk in front of each child were 
little sticks of wood. As the teacher dictated 
the lesson in which the arrangement of the 
sticks was to simulate a window, each of the 
fifty children was expected to obey the 
orders. Soon on the twenty-five desks at 
which the fifty children sat, the sticks were 
seen in all sorts of positions, from those 
designed by the bright boy or girl who could 
understand and obey the order to that of the 
poor little creature who painfully and blindly 
imitated his comrade, or sat in despair with 
his useless slips of wood in front of him. On 
the faces of these children, I saw depicted, 
in the place of the joyful emotions seen on 
those of the other group, a whole gamut of 
feeling: pride, joy, despair, envy, anxiety, 
fatigue. Here, except in the case of a very 
few, was the nerve-strain that I had expected 
to find in the other group, because they were 
attempting a task too hard for them and 
were using up their nerve force in trying to 

[43] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

understand and follow the arbitrary com- 
mands of a teacher, instead of gladly re- 
sponding with a sense of ability to group 
work for which they had previously been 
prepared as individuals. 

Another valuable element in that mastery 
of self of which obedience is so important a 
factor is the child's relation to rewards or 
prizes and to punishments. Dr. Montessori 
believes that a child brought up in such an 
atmosphere of freedom through disciplined 
activity as I have attempted to portray, 
will find sufficient motive-force within him- 
self in the expansion of his own power, and 
that anything extraneous, like a reward or a 
prize, is an insult to the expanding life- 
force within him. At first thought, one 
hesitates to accept this doctrine, feeling 
that in so doing we are expecting of the child 
a response to an appeal that he is not ready 
for, just as if we should give him an abstract 
idea of numbers before he has had its con- 
crete expression. But we must clearly un- 
derstand the distinction she makes between 
that sympathetic relationship established be- 
tween the child and his parents or teacher, 
by means of caresses and words of praise 
and encouragement for what is well done, 
[44] 



DISCIPLINE THROUGH OBEDIENCE 

and the formal bestowal of medals, stars, or 
other prizes. The first only stimulates his 
feeling of joy in accomplishment, the second 
puts another motive first, so that the child 
is trained not to find pleasure in the work 
or the doing of it, but in an outside reward. 
As Dr. Montessori's controlling idea is to 
liberate the spirit of the child, she believes 
there is on his part an unconscious response 
to true stimulus, and that the awakening 
soul within him needs only the spur of 
activity and the joy of successful effort. 

As a physician and an anthropologist, she 
has been one of the leaders in educational 
pathology. Where many would find reason 
for punishment, she looks for mental or 
physical defects or differences. In her 
illuminating book, " Pedagogical Anthro- 
pology/ ' she discusses fully the doctrine of 
punishment, and shows that she is in accord 
with the most advanced ideas. In her 
schools, the careful and frequent physical 
examination of the child takes note of all 
defects. Failing to find in an apparently 
willful and naughty child any physical reason 
for his conduct, she assists the process of 
growth in true obedience by either isolat- 
ing the child or giving him that discipline 
[45] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

which comes from the consequence of his 
actions. If the child is isolated he is caress- 
ed and made much of as if he were ill and to 
be pitied because he is not able to respond 
as the other children do, and in some mys- 
terious way the appeal to the soul within 
him is successful. But in the schools where 
the teachers are trained in the spirit of 
Montessori I saw very little need for other 
discipline than that coming from that in- 
hibition of acts which I have already dis- 
cussed. If the two-fold nature of true lib- 
erty, expression and inhibition, is kept in 
mind and the balance between them pre- 
served, the necessity for punishment, so- 
called, will be avoided. 

As to the doctrine of discipline through 
consequence, an illustration may be given 
from an experience in one of the schools last 
winter. In this school the children came 
from the families of the very poor, so hy- 
gienic precautions were very necessary. 
Here, as in other schools, the children are 
obliged to wear clean aprons which they 
must bring from home, so that the material 
used in common may be protected. That 
morning two little sisters came with clean 
hands and faces, but without their aprons. 
[46] 



DISCIPLINE THROUGH OBEDIENCE 

Instead of sending them home in disgrace, 
the teacher, who had been trained under 
Montessori, told them that as the Montessori 
games could not be used by children unless 
they had aprons to keep them clean, they 
could only use the material belonging to 
themselves, such as pencils or drawing paper. 
They spent the morning with these, but it 
was a lesson they will never forget, and I 
believe the offence will never be repeated. 
In my own class last summer, I had a lit- 
tle boy who at first was inclined to abuse 
the material by knocking it roughly about. 
When I told him that this showed me he was 
too much of a baby to use it properly, and 
that I must find something he could use, he 
reformed at once. So the appeal is always 
to the growing soul within the child as the 
motive is joy in success and pleasure in 
activity. 

This survey of some of the underlying 
principles of Dr. Montessori's system of 
education would be incomplete without a 
brief reference to those ideals which they 
embody which we might call spiritual. To 
Dr. Montessori' s deeply religious nature, all 
training which is true is training in right- 
eousness, and no child can possess that real 
[47] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

liberty of spirit which she desires for him 
unless his spiritual as well as physical and 
mental nature is developed through untram- 
melled freedom. If, as she believes, a child 
is religious by nature, the love of goodness, 
as well as the love of knowledge, is instinc- 
tive in the child, and needs only proper cul- 
ture in order that it may grow into life 
habits. A complete education, then, is the 
perfecting of the child's whole nature, and 
the conscious stimulation of his life force. 
It is in this way that a teacher may exercise 
her highest function: "To persuade the har- 
vest and bring on the deeper green. " 



[48] 



CHAPTER IV 

THE TWO-FOLD FUNCTION OF EDUCATION 

"Our aim in education is two-fold — biological and 
social. " 

Many definitions of education have been 
formulated from the time of Plato to the pres- 
ent day, but if we turn to modern psychol- 
ogy we shall find, I think, a guide to the 
true interpretation and clear expression of 
this word. Psychology calls itself the science 
of consciousness — that mysterious power 
within ourselves which we can realise but 
not define — and teaches us that the purpose 
of this consciousness is a double one, in that 
it should not only gain for us knowledge of 
the world outside of our personality which 
we call environment, but should help us, 
as well, to adjust and adapt ourselves to 
that environment, and also, when necessary, 
to modify it. In other words, it leads to 
knowledge and to the highest development 
of character through action. It also teaches 
us that our nervous system, as the instru- 
ment of consciousness, has a double function : 
[49] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

first, to bring to consciousness by means of 
the nerves of sensation and the centers in 
the brain the material for a greater and 
greater fullness of knowledge; second, to 
carry out by means of the motor centers and 
nerves the commands of that totality of con- 
sciousness which we call Will, which result in 
action or conduct. If we accept these state- 
ments, then we ought to define education 
as the method by which this two-fold 
function of consciousness is established 
through the full development of our con- 
sciousness and the perfecting of its instru- 
ment, the nervous system. Education is 
thus thought of as being on two planes — the 
higher in its relation to consciousness, and 
the lower in its relation to our nervous 
system. Any theory of education to be in 
accord with these psychological tenets must 
provide for the full development of each 
child on both of these planes, a material or 
lower and a spiritual or higher. On the 
lower plane is the consideration how we 
can perfect the nervous system — how best 
develop inherited impulses, instincts and re- 
flexes into habits; how we can co-ordinate 
our motor fife and how acquire the needed 
technique for a proper mastery of our envi- 
[50] 



TWO-FOLD AIM OF EDUCATION 

ronment. On the higher plane lies the 
problem how to develop our consciousness 
through the enrichment first of our life of 
sensation, then of perception, apperception 
and conception, all of which give us knowl- 
edge and power of thought; and also the 
problem how to develop that totality of 
activity which we call the will and thus grow 
to the full stature of our possibilities as man 
made in the image of God. Such an ideal 
of education is never reached by humanity, 
for all systems of education have the head of 
gold but the feet of clay. Even so, I believe 
that if we consider Dr. Montessori's theories 
and the material embodying them on both 
the material and spiritual plane, we shall 
find great possibilities in it for education 
in its two-fold function, biological and social. 
The Montessori method by its training of 
the senses and of the power of observation 
develops the child along the lower plane 
first, that is biologically; while in its intellec- 
tual training in perception, conception and 
power of abstract thinking, it prepares a 
child as a social being first to understand and 
then to mould his environment. It is such 
power to adapt environment to suit the grow- 
ing needs of civilisation that differentiates 
[51 ] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

highly developed man from the lower animal 
or the savage. Such a broad conception of 
education as I have outlined includes as the 
highest function of all that spiritual growth 
which is the result of the complete flower- 
ing of personality, and complete adaptation 
to environment. 

In the study which follows we should keep 
in mind, then, the spiritual ideal which is 
the goal of true education as we trace step 
by step this method from its beginning on 
the lower or physical plane. 

Dr. Montessori's first, though by no means 
only, concern as a physician, anthropologist, 
and psychologist is with the physical side 
of the child's life; and her years of experience 
in hospitals and asylums have fitted her to 
be our guide to a full knowledge of the laws 
of his growth. In America more than in 
Italy, perhaps, the field is ready for such 
teaching, owing to the researches of educa- 
tional psychologists like Dewey and Thorn- 
dike and to experimental work such as is 
carried on in institutions of psycho-medical 
and psychic research and in schools for the 
feeble-minded such as Vineiand. Tests have 
already been applied in many of our public 
schools in order to discover the backward 
[52] 



TWO-FOLD AIM OF EDUCATION 

and the abnormal or defective child; but we 
are far from that ideal condition desired 
by Dr. Montessori, wherein the teacher, the 
physician and the parent shall combine to 
make a systematic, intelligent and scientific 
study of every child, normal or abnormal, 
proficient or deficient, week by week, month 
by month and year by year ; at the same time 
keeping records which shall be the guide of 
each teacher in turn as the child passes from 
one to another in his progress in the schools. 
Let us hope the day will soon come when 
such observation and examination of each 
child as the Montessori system provides for 
will cause each to be measured by psycholog- 
ical and biological tests, so that his age will 
not be thought of according to the arbitrary 
date of his birth, but according to his real 
development, mentally and physically. Such 
a " school within the home" as I have de- 
scribed in Chapter I, with its unique co- 
operation of parent, teacher and physician, 
and with its careful, systematised measure- 
ments and records, affording unparalleled 
opportunities for child study, we have yet 
to see in this country; and until we have it, 
we cannot follow exactly the directions given 
in her book, but, as in other cases, we must 
[53] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

apply the principle of adaptation to our own 
conditions. 

Because Dr. Montessori considers so care- 
fully the physical nature of the child, she 
also provides for his nutrition. In the schools 
in Rome, inspired or directed by her, a 
special system of diet is followed, such as is 
described in the chapter on Children's Diet 
in her "Scientific Pedagogy." Here again 
it would be impossible and undesirable to 
follow this advice literally, but if we are true 
to the desire to make the spirit which ani- 
mates her our own, we need not hesitate to 
adopt such modifications as are necessary. 

Dr. Montessori' s controlling principle of 
liberty for the child in the spontaneous 
manifestations of his activity, which is 
also a means of moral discipline as these 
manifestations become organised through 
work, must be borne in mind from the start 
as we study the so-called didactic material 
she has devised to assist this liberation of 
his life force. As her knowledge of medicine 
fits her to give especial care to the physical 
side of the child's life, so her sociological 
views aid her to secure a fitting environment 
for him; so this material is never, in a true 
Montessori school, placed in the hands of 
[54] 



TWO-FOLD AIM OF EDUCATION 

the pupil until he has been fitted to his 
surroundings, and an environment has been 
carefully prepared for him according to his 
own laws of time and space, so different 
from those of maturity. We, therefore, find 
that in a " Children's House " everything 
is, or should be, on a scale proportionate 
to these laws. The hours are long so as to 
provide for the slow response to stimulus 
and the leisurely activity which is character- 
istic of the little child. While the teacher is 
guided in her suggestions by the passage of 
time, the child is not made conscious of it 
and is never hurried. The furnishings of the 
rooms are also true to the child's scale of 
dimensions. The tables are low, broad, 
light, so they can be carried about, yet firm 
and solid. The chairs are also low, com- 
fortable and easy to move. The material 
is placed about the room in cases which are 
within the reach of childish fingers. The 
large windows are so near the floor that the 
children can look out freely. The wash- 
stands, lavatories and shelves or hooks 
for wearing apparel and towels are all so 
arranged that they can be used by each 
child without strain. Little squares of felt, 
rolled up and kept in corners of the room. 
[55] 



A GUIDE TO THE MOXTESSORI METHOD 

can be quickly shaken out and placecTon the 
floor by any child. The blackboards are 
low, the chalk and erasers are all within 
reach. Plants and flowers are arranged 
about the room so that the children can 
take care of them. If there is a garden, it 
is easily accessible, and each child has his 
own bed to care for as he chooses, and ani- 
mals to love and tend. The rest-room with 
its hammocks, easy chairs, picture-books and 
playthings, is to be freely used. On the 
wall of the schoolroom is usually found a 
large framed photograph of the royal chil- 
dren and a beautiful copy of the Madonna of 
the Chair. The floors of dark red Roman 
tiles are very effective and hygienic at the 
same time. 

Such a house for children, fitted to their 
needs, belongs to them and is as it should 
be in their care. Therefore the first les- 
sons are those which develop a sense of 
responsibility, a feeling of collective owner- 
ship, and a care for property. I arrived at 
a school in Rome one morning before the 
teacher or her assistant. The rooms were 
open and several of the children who were 
there early were busily engaged in wiping 
off the chairs, tables, window-ledges and 



1-WO-FOLD AIM OF EDUCATION 

tops of shelves; watering the plants, and 
caring for the bird cages; and the entrance 
of the teacher caused no interruption, so 
absorbed were they in their work. This 
training in neatness, order and cleanliness 
is extended to the children themselves. The 
universal Roman custom of wearing aprons 
seems to me excellent from a hygienic 
standpoint, as they are brought clean from 
home, kept in the school-house and put on 
for the same reason that the nurse or doctor 
in a hospital puts on his gown, to protect 
the material. They add also to the neat, 
attractive appearance of the children. In 
most of the schools, the boys wear aprons of 
one colour and cut and the girls of another. 
The name of the child is usually in script 
on the front of the apron, and very often 
bows of ribbon of some particular colour 
fasten the apron at the shoulders. In one 
of the municipal schools I visited, the chil- 
dren all wore yellow bows on their white 
aprons. In another school the girls in one 
of the rooms had bows, blotting-paper for 
their desks and paper covers for their books 
all of the same dark, rich shade of blue. 

The children love the feeling of absolute 
cleanliness. They are at once taught the 
[57] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI x^fyOD 

proper use of soap and water, and are made 
to realise how much keener the tactile 
sense is when their hands are clean, and 
so take pleasure in keeping them in good 
condition. The fineness of touch thus de- 
veloped makes them sensitive to the least 
dust. One day the children of a certain 
school came back from their recess in the 
garden and took their places in their usual 
seats. One little girl thought she felt some 
dust, which was not visible to the eye, on 
her table top. So she rose quietly, went to 
the closet for a dust-cloth and without a 
word wiped off, not only her own table, but 
all the others. 

It is only, therefore, after the class has 
become accustomed to collective order 
through the personal care each one gives 
to the room and himself, that a child is 
introduced to the didactic material. Dr. 
Montessori expects days of disorder and 
confusion in the school until within the soul 
of each child there arises a sense of the 
beauty of order and of cleanliness, and until 
each has come into close personal relation 
with his teacher. Dr. Montessori's state- 
ment that " a room is in good order when all 
the children move about usefully, intelli- 
[58] 



TWO-FOLD AIM OF EDUCATION 

gently and voluntarily without committing 
any rough or rude act" seemed to me most 
fully illustrated by a school which at its open- 
ing in the fall was the despair of the teacher 
on account of its disorder, so that she 
finished each day in tears. But this teacher 
had in her own mind a clear conception of 
what true order meant, and patience and 
wisdom in establishing it through gradual 
training in repression as well as expression, 
until an ideal of order and of good as opposed 
to evil was made real to each child, and the 
desire and ability to gain it came to him. 

I have endeavoured to point out how the 
Montessori Method, by its biological and 
psychological tests, its physical care of the 
child, its attention to sense training (espe- 
cially at first of the tactile sense), its attempt 
to awaken the power of observation, may if 
properly understood and applied, educate the 
child along the biological or lower plane; and 
simultaneously by virtue of its didactic ma- 
terial develop in the child a sense of collec- 
tive order and responsibility and thus fit him 
socially for an environment already thought- 
fully adapted to his laws and needs; after 
which the way to his intellectual develop- 
ment (education along the higher plane) is 

[59] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

open. To all who can discern so much in 
it the Montessori system, in agreement with 
our definition in the beginning of the chapter, 
will justify itself as a system of education 
which makes for the all-round development 
of the child. It is my purpose in the two 
chapters immediately following, to give a de- 
tailed account of this motor and sensory edu- 
cation, and later on to explain still further 
its application along the higher or intel- 
lectual plane, which includes the spiritual. 



[60] 



CHAPTER V 

PHYSICAL EDUCATION 

"The aim of education is to develop the energies." 

In the description in the previous chapter 
of the environment prepared for the child 
in a Montessori school, that he may begin 
his education under proper social conditions, 
allusion was made to some of the exercises 
in practical life which the children are given, 
such as taking care of themselves, of the 
room, and of plants and animals. These 
exercises may also be considered as the 
beginning of the child's motor education, 
which is more fully provided for by the 
Montessori system of gymnastics or muscu- 
lar training. Her definition of such muscu- 
lar education is a very broad one and she 
sees in it a three-fold purpose: first, to aid 
the normal development of the child's physi- 
ological movements, such as walking, breath- 
ing or talking; second, to assist his muscular 
co-ordination; and third, to inhibit useless, 
dangerous or improper movements, thus 
[61] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

relating gymnastics in its broadest sense to 
moral training and self -discipline. She would 
agree, I think, with G. Stanley Hall (Adoles- 
cence, Chapter III, p. 132) that: "For the 
young, motor education is cardinal and is 
now coming to due recognition, and for all, 
education is incomplete without a motor 
side. Skill, endurance and perseverance 
may almost be called muscular virtues; and 
fatigue, velleity, caprice, ennui, restlessness, 
lack of control and poise, muscular faults." 
The first purpose, that of aiding the de- 
velopment physiologically, is gained chiefly 
by means of the gymnastic apparatus and 
other exercises which she has adapted 
to the peculiar structure of children. Her 
medical experiences have proved to her that 
the child develops anatomically very irregu- 
larly, and that his body or trunk which 
contains the vital organs grows much faster 
than his extremities and is therefore in his 
early years out of all proportion to them. 
After my attention was again directed to 
this fact in Rome I studied with a new inter- 
est the faithful portrayal of the child's 
physique by the old masters, Raphael, Mich- 
ael Angelo and Fra Lippo Lippi and under- 
stood as I never had before the short legs 
[62] 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION 

and large bodies of the children in the many 
"Holy Families" to be seen in the galleries. 
She also believes in giving the very young 
child every opportunity to indulge to the 
utmost his propensity to stretch himself, 
to kick, to walk on all fours, to throw him- 
self prone on the ground, and in all the other 
ways by which he instinctively keeps his 
weight from off his legs and so prevents 
undue strain. Many of her exercises for 
little children are definitely planned to 
lessen the weight of the torso or trunk on 
the extremities. One is like the Swedish 
bom with parallel bars firmly affixed to 
upright poles on which the children can pass 
along the bars suspended by their hands. 
She has devised a swing with such a wide 
seat that the child's feet do not hang down 
and his legs are supported by it. This 
apparatus is swung near a board or wall, 
against which the child pushes his feet in 
order to keep the swing in motion, and so 
strengthens his ankles. They may, while still 
seated in these chairs, vary the exercise by 
playing with rubber balls hung on cords. In 
this way the arms and spinal column are 
exercised. She has also devised numerous 
exercises with rope ladders to assist the 
[63] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSGRI METHOD 

child in gaining equilibrium and poise in 
kneeling, rising, walking and running; and 
others to increase his chest expansion. She 
realises that as the most primitive of the 
senses is that of touch, so the most primitive 
action of the hand is prehension or grasping, 
the forerunner of all its more delicate move- 
ments, and she regards the ladder, the swing 
and the bom valuable for exercises prepara- 
tory to training in sense perception through 
touch. Here again she is in full accord with 
modern psychology, which teaches us that 
the hand is second only to the brain as in- 
strumental in the development of the higher 
consciousness of the human being, as con- 
trasted with that of the lower animals. 
Other exercises which serve this first pur- 
pose, the development of physiological 
movements, are those of walking on a line, 
exercises for deep breathing, and those 
which teach proper articulation, enunciation 
and pronunciation. 

Parents who really desire to assist this 
last-named development of speech should 
give up the fond and foolish notion that 
"baby talk," so called, is cunning and to be 
encouraged; and instead, should vigorously 
resist all temptation to enjoy the early de- 
[64] 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION 

fects of children, such as lisping, substitution 
of one sound for another, and failure to 
pronounce at all certain sounds. They can, 
on the other hand, help instead of hinder the 
child's later progress by giving him those 
exercises which he needs to develop the mus- 
cles of the lips and tongue. In place of the 
Italian words for muscular training which 
are found on page 148 of "The Montessori 
Method/ ' I suggest the following English 
equivalents, to be used in the same way: 
Papa — father — ta ta — zebra — stilly — rab- 
bit. The Italian children are accustomed, 
of course, by the very nature of their lan- 
guage to much more careful enunciation of 
the consonant sounds than American chil- 
dren are, and there is more need for us to 
adopt exercises which will offset our own 
slipshod use of our vowel and consonant 
sounds. The exercises in careful and exact 
nomenclature, which are a part of the sense 
training, may, with profit, be begun by moth- 
ers as they teach their children the names of 
various objects. In America this training 
is too often neglected in the home and some- 
times in the kindergarten, and left to the 
teachers in the primary grades, where it is 
often too late to correct bad habits of voice 
[65] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

placing (nasal or head tones), and of articu- 
lation which should not have been allowed 
to be formed. Our custom of teaching 
songs to groups of children in our kinder- 
garten and schools is in some measure to 
blame for this tendency to careless enuncia- 
tion, as the many amusing stories of childish 
perversions of familiar hymns and songs will 
prove. 

The second purpose of motor education, 
to assist muscular co-ordination, is gained 
chiefly through the use of the wooden frames 
fitted with cloth of various kinds intended for 
practice in buttoning, lacing, hooking, snap- 
ping and tying of bow-knots, as well as by the 
more purely sensory exercises, such as the 
Big and Long Stairs, the Tower and the 
Solid Insets which have this secondary value 
also. Since my return from Italy, I have 
watched with new eyes our American chil- 
dren, and I firmly believe they need training 
in muscular co-ordination more than do 
Italian children. We must always keep in 
mind the fund of nervous energy which is 
the child's birthright. This native endow- 
ment I believe to be greater in the American 
child; but so far it has not been utilised 
because of a lack of training in co-ordina- 
[66] 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION 

tion due to the fact that so much of his 
play has been aimless. Froebel, as we all 
know, suggested in his wonderful book, 
" Mother Play," many exercises for proper 
co-ordination of muscular activities, but 
they are much more limited in their scope 
than those of Dr. Montessori and therefore 
more barren of results. 

The third purpose, that of inhibition of 
all useless, dangerous or improper movements 
is obtained in many ways. Montessori 
believes as firmly as did Froebel that the 
cure for wrong activity is not inaction but 
is right activity, and the formation of 
right habits to take the place of useless or 
wrong ones. The children are taught to 
walk quietly on the balls of their feet, and 
are given exercises for grace in walking, in 
bowing, shaking hands and in simple dance 
forms. All selfish use of the material is also 
inhibited, as they are not allowed to take 
games from each other, or to push, shove, or 
crowd one another. At their luncheon each 
child waits with hands folded until all are 
served. The game of silence where the 
children learn with delight wonderful lessons 
in self-control, the muscular training in 
co-ordination, provided for by all the ma- 
[67] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

terial, the ideal for discipline, all combine 
to give the child increasing power of both 
inhibition and co-ordination, the great se- 
cret of true discipline and obedience. 

Since my return from Italy I have heard the 
statement often made that Dr. Montessori 
does not believe in play. Like many other 
criticisms this has arisen from a misap- 
prehension, this time of her allusion to 
"foolish and degrading toys" (Montessori 
Method, p. 372) a phrase which has been 
wrested from its connection and misapplied. 
Dr. Montessori believes that a child is in 
earnest in his play and loves to give it 
meaning. She encourages free play there- 
fore as a part of the child's motor training 
and suggests many of Froebel's games 
with songs, and approves of balls, kites, 
hoops, bean bags, games of tag or "Puss in 
the corner." All these are active, all de- 
velop the children physically and exercise 
their intelligence while they are at the same 
time expressing their spontaneous choice. 
She directs her sarcasm against such mechan- 
ical toys as are always to be found in our 
shops which afford no opportunity for the 
child to show his constructive ability. 

Montessori also includes as a part of 
[68] 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION 

gymnastics what we should call nature 
work. The out-door life of the children is 
encouraged by gardening — little gardens to 
be cultivated by the children and animals 
to be taken care of — and in all the activities 
connected with these out-of-door occupa- 
tions, she sees very valuable exercises in 
poise, in co-ordination and in numerous 
other ways. 

But nature study in its largest sense has 
to Dr. Montessori a social and a moral 
value even more than a physical one. She 
recognises in Xtard's wonderful experience 
in gradually weaning the savage of the 
Aveyron from his absorption in wild nature 
and leading him to some measure of social 
life, a precious example to be applied to the 
education of normal children. Man is a 
social being and finds his highest completion 
not in isolation but in community life. 
But he is also a child of nature and must be 
prepared for society by a gradual transition 
from a life as nearly natural as possible to 
one in which the limits set by society are 
felt. She therefore urges a large measure 
of out-door life under the simplest condi- 
tions in connection with plants and animals, 
not only for its physical effect on children, 
[69] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

but for the social and moral training in- 
volved. She notes the following steps in 
progress in this direction: First, observation 
of life phenomena, which leads to interest in 
and care for plants and animals; this leads 
to forethought as the child realises their 
dependence on him, which is a step in his 
auto-education. This again develops the 
virtue of patience as he waits for the plants 
to grow from the seeds he has planted and of 
expectation which is a form of faith. In the 
next step there arises in the child a true 
love for nature which leads to a care of all 
life, an interest in all its manifestations, and 
a confidence which prevents causeless fear. 
Last of all, the life of the child corresponds 
to the natural progress of the human race. 

Dr. Montessori makes a distinction be- 
tween manual gymnastics, the physical side 
of nature work, and manual labor which 
makes a finished product; but she realises 
that this distinction is theoretical rather 
than practical and that manual training is 
necessary as a factor in education. But her 
experience in manual training as we under- 
stand it in America is very limited. We 
should, as in the case of children's diet, 
accept her principle of spontaneity and liberty 
[70] 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION 

in this as in other processes of education and 
apply it to our own well-developed system. 
She has adopted in her schools free work in 
clay, together with vase forms — which af- 
fords opportunity for the spontaneous ex- 
pression of the child's personality — and con- 
structive work with brick tiles, first of a wall 
and then of a complete house. Here again 
she finds a social and moral as well as a 
physical value through the muscular control 
gained in all these ways. 

Physical training to Dr. Montessori em- 
braces all the motor side of a child's develop- 
ment, whether physiological, muscular or 
inhibitive. It has been necessary to make a 
separate study of it just as we shall study 
sensory education in the following chapter; 
but there is no separation in the child's 
life, for physical, mental and moral training 
are a trinity in unity. 



[71] 



CHAPTER VI 

SENSORY EDUCATION 

"A game is a free activity ordered to a definite end." 

In the theory of education set forth in 
Dr. Montessori's book, the education of the 
senses takes a very important place, because 
it is only by the perfecting of the sensory- 
motor-nervous system that the fully devel- 
oped conscious life of the individual is 
gained, which is our ideal. We have dis- 
cussed, in a separate chapter, the principles 
and methods of her system of muscular 
education, but we must never forget that 
the two processes, sensory and motor, are 
united in the human being, and education 
in them both goes on simultaneously. Edu- 
cation has long concerned itself with the 
motor side of our nature. "To learn by 
doing" is a familiar precept. But the sen- 
sory side, while not in any sense neglected, 
has not until now been scientifically studied, 
so that a full realisation of the possibilities 
[72] 



SENSORY EDUCATION 

of sense education has been lacking. Mon- 
tessori, however, in her theory of the value 
of sense training must not be classed with 
Pestalozzi, for she is, I think, in accord with 
those American psychologists who believe 
the theory of formal discipline to be false. 
Her purpose is to give each child a full sen- 
sory life, as early as possible, that his brain 
cells will develop and paths of association 
between them be formed. Higher powers 
of observation, conception and appercep- 
tion come as the result of a rich sensory 
experience. Herb art taught us the value 
of apperception; that is, the recognition in 
the new of some element already perceived; 
but that sensation must be the foundation 
for perception, apperception, and conception, 
he would have admitted as freely as does 
Montessori. The Montessori method, in 
its appeal to all the senses and in practical 
devices for their training, is unexcelled, and 
by it new fields of delight are open to the 
child. 

Modern psychology has not only distin- 
guished more of our senses than we were 
formerly supposed to possess, but has 
studied them more closely and located them 
more exactly. For purposes of convenience 
[73) 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

and in order that we may test Dr. Mon- 
tessori's claim for her system that it affords 
complete sense training, I give here a list 
of the senses and of their location according 
to the latest authorities, with whom Dr. 
Montessori is in agreement : 

Visual or sight — located in the eyes. 

Audile or hearing — located in the ears. 

Gustatory or taste — located in the tongue and 
palate. 

Olfactory or smell — located in the nostrils. 

Tactile or touch — located in the finger-tips 
(chiefly). 

Thermic or heat — located in the skin. 

Baric or weight — located in the tendons and 
muscles. 

Stereognostic — fusion of tactile and muscular. 

Chromatic — sense of colour (a division of 
visual). 

Each sense organ is connected with its 
especial center in the brain or spinal cord by 
means of sensory nerves. The sensations 
reported by these nerves set up a reaction 
which affects the corresponding motor nerves 
and lead to muscular activity. At birth 
the child responds in an impulsive, reflex 
or automatic way to stimulation, and con- 
sciousness develops slowly with the needs 
[74] 



SENSORY EDUCATION 

of the growing child. As sensation and 
motor action parallel each other, little by- 
little the higher centers in the upper brain 
or cerebrum function, and better and better 
connection is made between them, so that 
gradually full consciousness with power of 
logical thinking succeeds to the simple re- 
flexes of infancy. In order, then, that the 
brain cells may develop and paths of asso- 
ciation between them be formed, each sense 
organ should receive full stimulation, and co- 
ordination of motor activity in its turn be 
encouraged. Parents and educators need 
to be familiar with this order of normal 
growth so that in the early years of a child's 
life they may provide ample opportunity 
for sense stimulus; and should expect little 
logical thought or power of generalisation 
until the higher centers begin to function 
and paths between them be formed. If at 
this period the laws of habit and attention 
are obeyed, the general as well as the specific 
effects of sense training will be obtained. 

In the normal child the most primitive 
sense and the one earliest developed is that 
of touch; the others follow probably in this 
order: taste, smell (with which it fuses), 
sight, hearing, then the thermic, baric and 
[75] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

stereognostic senses. But the natural order 
of development is modified by our artificial 
civilisation, so that when a child comes to 
kindergarten or school his sense of sight is 
usually the one most highly developed. 
Dr. Montessori is in accord with recent 
thought when she lays great stress on the 
value of the sense of touch, and in her early 
work she began with its development, but 
experience has taught her that the appeal to 
the modern child must be through the sense 
of sight first, then through that of touch. 
In order, therefore, to take advantage of the 
visual sense training a child of three already 
has had, she has so arranged her sequence 
of exercises as to begin with vision, but her 
aim is to lead the child to depend less and 
less upon it and exercise more and more the 
other senses, especially that of touch. 

Before we take up the study of the mate- 
rial for developing all the senses we must 
fix clearly in our minds some important 
principles. First, that it is training, not 
measurement of the sense, that is the ideal 
to be kept before us and therefore although 
much of the material may be similar to that 
used by scientists for purposes of measure- 
ment, in the hands of the educator (whether 
[76J 






SENSORY EDUCATION 



teacher or parent), its function is to exercise 
and it must therefore divert and not weary 
the child, as it might if used for measure- 
ment. In the second place, there must be 
careful training and practice in the isolation 
of the senses as well as in their combination. 
The custom of blindfolding the child or 
accustoming him to look away from the 
material, in order to develop the sense of 
touch or of weight, is an illustration of the 
first; and the union of the stereognostic 
sense with that of sight and sound in learning 
to read and write is an example of the second. 
In the third place, we must remember that 
Dr. Montessori considers the material she 
has invented a necessary minimum only for 
education, and we may therefore feel free 
to elaborate and expand as conditions and 
experience dictate, provided always we keep 
clearly in mind the principles which should 
guide us. I found, by way of example, 
that a very helpful addition to the frames 
used in motor-education, as I shall show 
more in detail later, was one for braiding. 
I also elaborated the training in the chro- 
matic sense furnished by the colour spools 
by the use of fresh, shaded flowers, like 
nasturtiums. I think the objection often 
[77] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

made to this material, that it is too formal, 
may be avoided in this way and that we 
may also develop its possibilities in connec- 
tion with nature study. It is also to be 
remembered that the same material which 
when used by the teachers of the feeble- 
minded makes their education possible, 
can stimulate the auto-education of the nor- 
mal child who uses it by himself. This 
fact is significant in relation to two valuable 
characteristics of this method: the oppor- 
tunity it affords for observation of the child 
by the teacher or parent, combined with the 
liberty granted to the child in its use. This 
will be treated of more fully in the chapter 
on the Montessori Teacher, where we shall 
see in it the possible solution of the modern 
problem, how we may have at the same time 
a scientific and a sympathetic interest in 
the child, so necessary if we are to be success- 
ful in our vocation. 

This principle of liberty for the child 
who at first uses the material by himself and 
is not corrected by the teacher but by the 
material, is a most important one and not 
easily understood or applied by the teacher 
trained in the usual kindergarten or elemen- 
tary school methods who will be inclined 
[78] 



SENSORY EDUCATION 

to teach instead of direct. This self-correc- 
tion leads the child to concentrate his atten- 
tion upon differences in dimensions, and to 
compare them, which is a most valuable 
exercise for the development of his sensory 
system as related to his conscious life. But 
there is no question as yet of teaching the 
formal knowledge of dimensions nor of mak- 
ing practical use of the material. All this 
comes later. This first period in the pre- 
sentation of the material is in strong con- 
trast to the use of the Froebelian material in 
the kindergarten, where the aim of the teach- 
er from the first is to furnish knowledge. 
James, in his Psychology, makes a distinction 
between " acquaintance with" and " knowl- 
edge about" a thing, meaning by the first 
phrase sensation and the second perception. 
In the Montessori system the preliminary 
period, of sensation, is emphasised; and in the 
kindergarten the second, of perception. In 
this preliminary stage it is very important 
that the teacher does not interfere and 
equally so that the material should be such 
as to allow the child gradually to observe 
and rectify his mistakes. When the child 
performs the exercise perfectly without 
making any errors, he has outgrown it and 
[79] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

its only value is for occasional repetition 
for the sake of drill.-' 

Neither is this first auto-education of the 
child to be confused with those concrete 
ideas of our environment which may be later 
gained by its means, nor with the careful 
training in the use of language which corre- 
sponds to the abstract idea. Rather should 
its fundamental purpose always be kept in N 
mind, which is to increase the power to 
recognise differences as the material stimu- 
lates the child's attention and increases his 
power of observation. 

This methodical yet spontaneous prelim- 
inary training of all the senses in turn as a 
preparation for further education by means 
of the " three periods'' under the guidance 
of the teacher, is justified by the two-fold 
conception of education upon which so much 
stress has been laid, namely, biological and 
social. In this earliest stage it is with the 
biological purpose that we are chiefly, though 
not wholly, concerned — that is the natural 
growth of the child in accordance with the 
laws of his being, so that his nervous system 
as an instrument of his conscious life is per- 
fected. To fit him for his environment and 
make him able to modify his environment is 
[80] 



SENSORY EDUCATION 

an aim to be achieved after his senses have 
been trained. 

Before a study of the material in detail 
is made it will be helpful, I think, to have 
before us for reference a list of it as it is 
manufactured in America by the " House of 
Childhood." 

Eight Frames: 

Buttoning on red flannel. 

Buttoning on drill with tapes. 

Buttoning on leather. 

Lacing on cloth. 

Lacing on leather. 

Hooks and eyes. 

Snaps. 

Tying how-knots. 
Solid inset with ten cylinders of equal height 

varying in diameter. 
Solid inset with ten cylinders of equal diam- 
eter varying in height. 
Solid inset with ten cylinders varying in both 

height and diameter. 
Tower — ten cubes varying in size. 
The Broad Stair — ten prisms varying in height 

and thickness. 
The Long Stair — ten rods varying in length. 
Two Colour Boxes — containing 64 reels wound 

with silk of eight colours and eight shades 

of each colour. 

[81] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

Two boards for teaching rough and smooth: 

Squares of wood and of sandpaper. 

Alternate strips of wood and of sandpaper. 
Two boxes containing fabrics — silk, velvet, 

woolen, cotton, etc. 
Cabinet for wooden geometric insets with 36 

insets in six drawers. 
Box for metal insets with ten insets. 
Thirty-six cards with geometric forms in solid 

blue colour. 
Thirty-six cards with geometric forms in heavy 

blue line. 
Thirty-six cards with geometric forms in light 

black line. 
Two drawing tables. 

Adjustable wooden frame to hold the insets. 
Box with sandpaper alphabet. 
Box with sandpaper numbers. 
Two boxes with script alphabets. 
Three sets of wooden tablets for Baric sense 

training. 
Two Counting boxes with fifty sticks. 
One Counting case containing sliding shelves 

and cards with numbers. 
Six Sound boxes. 

I give also the names of the 32 geometric 
figures used: 

One square. 
Five rectangles. 
Four quadrilaterals. 
[82] 



SENSORY EDUCATION 

Six circles. 
Six triangles. 

Six polygons from pentagon to decagon. 
Four curved figures — ellipse, oval, three 
and four segments of arcs. 

Together with the above are used the 
bricks and cubes of Froebel, balls of wool 
of different colours, discs similar to those 
used in games for counting, building blocks, 
Faber's coloured pencils and drawing paper, 
clay, corns, seeds and grains, and numerous 
toys. I have found it useful to add to the 
above paper-dolls of various kinds to be 
coloured by the children as a further exercise 
in perfecting the technique of writing. 

Education on what may be called the 
lower plane — that is, for the purpose of 
developing the sensory and motor sides of 
the nervous system as the instrument of con- 
sciousness — begins for the very young child 
in the Montessori school when, attracted, 
let us say, by the sight of the large pink 
blocks which form the so-called tower, or 
one of the frames of red flannel with its 
row of white buttons, he selects one of 
these to play with. If it is the tower he 
will need no help at first, for the blocks as 
he uses them are a sufficient guide and will 
[83] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

themselves serve as a corrective for his 
mistakes. When the child, after playing a 
while with the pink cubes which form the 
tower, sees that the largest block should 
be at the bottom, the training of his power 
of attention has begun; and as he handles 
the blocks, learning gradually to place them 
one upon another in proper sequence, his 
muscular sense already awakened now be- 
gins to develop. Then if the teacher shows 
him how to pass his hand lightly from the 
bottom to the top of the stair that he may 
gain by sense of touch an idea of its succes- 
sive steps, his tactile sense is trained and, 
combined with the visual, calls forth his 
power of discrimination. 

The child is now ready for the " Three 
Periods of Seguin," so called, which Dr. 
Montessori has adapted to her material, 
and which he passes through as he learns 
its use and receives from it valuable sensory 
and motor training. 

In the first period the teacher, let us 
imagine, takes the largest block of the tower 
with which the child has been playing 
and says: "This is the largest block, the 
largest/' which word the child will prob- 
ably repeat after her. Then, taking the lit- 
[S4] 



SENSORY EDUCATION 

tie cube that forms the apex, she will show 
that to him saying: "This is the smallest, 
the smallest," until that word also is re- 
peated by the child. The two pieces which 
are in strong contrast as to size are then 
shown to the child together, the teacher 
again saying: "This is the largest — this is 
the smallest," the child repeating the words 
as he looks at the blocks. When he is ready 
for the next step the teacher says: "Give 
me the largest," or "Give me the smallest." 
If he fails to respond with the correct action, 
the teacher either leaves him for a little or 
goes back again to the first period in obe- 
dience to the principle that there must be 
no forcing of the child's attention, and in 
view of the fact that he has shown that he is 
not ready for this step. On the other hand, 
if he evinces pleasure in giving as requested 
first the largest and then the smallest block, 
giving proof that he has learned to dis- 
criminate thus far, he is ready for the third 
step. This is the most difficult for the 
child to take and he must not be hurried 
or coerced into it. The teacher picks up 
the largest block and asks: "What is this?" 
If the child is ready he will answer, "The 
largest"; but if he is not she should return to 
[85] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

the first and second periods again until he 
can answer readily and accurately. I have 
purposely used as an illustration the very 
simple material presented to the youngest 
children; but the same order is followed 
with all, the teacher choosing at first strong 
contrasts and gradually giving finer grada- 
tions, leading the child to finer and finer 
discriminations. 

These " three periods," preceded by a pe- 
riod of spontaneous use of the material for 
the normal child, should be used by the 
teacher in presenting any of the material; 
but they must not follow each other too 
quickly, the response of the child being in 
every case the cue for the teacher. Take 
as another example the solid insets, as they 
are called, which, with the frames and the 
pink tower, are the usual choice of very 
little children, or are usually selected for 
them by the teacher. Here again the ma- 
terial is didactic in its quality of automatic 
correction of error. The teacher will give 
a child one of the sets of solid insets — let 
us suppose that one in which all of the 
cylinders are of the same diameter but 
graded as to height — first taking these out 
and placing them in disorder upon the table 
F861 



SENSORY EDUCATION 

or upon one of the pieces of carpet on the 
floor. The child with his instinctive love 
of putting things somewhere, will play per- 
haps a long time with this until he discov- 
ers that each piece must go into its own 
hole. Here again he begins with his visual 
sense, but the teacher soon shows him how 
to take hold of each piece by its little brass 
knob with one hand, while passing lightly 
the fingers of the other around its surface. 
By degrees the tactile sense reinforces the 
visual until it sometimes takes its place, and 
the child blindfolded or with eyes closed 
trusts entirely to it, repeating the exercise 
over and over again, thereby illustrating 
the principle of the value of free repetition 
as training in discipline and obedience. 

The three periods are again followed in 
succession as the material is given first in 
strong contrasts and then in close grada- 
tion until the child learns to name the 
largest, the smallest, the highest, the lowest, 
and to use all the comparative terms which 
lie between. In all cases the principles of 
non-correction and of free attention are ad- 
hered to. The child, not strained in an 
effort to pay attention or to obey a com- 
mand which he has not yet the ability or 
[87] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

desire to execute, or to remember before 
he has received a strong enough impres- 
sion, will play without fatigue for a greater 
or shorter length of time according to his 
temperament and mental development, un- 
til he turns of his own accord to something 
else or responds to the suggestion for some 
collective instead of individual game. 

Although opportunity is always found in a 
Montessori school for free play with blocks, 
toys and other material as well as for out- 
door games, Dr. Montessori' s definition of a 
game as a "free activity ordered to a defi- 
nite end" and her belief in the serious at- 
titude of children to what we call their 
play, causes her to place less emphasis on 
aimless play than we have done. She in- 
culcates respect for and care of the material 
by prohibiting desultory use of it. The 
child is led to see that each game is really a 
problem to be solved, and to play the game 
in such a way as to find the correct solution. 

Having shown by these two examples the 
method used in presenting the different 
games, let us now pass in review all of the 
material, arranging it in such groups as 
is indicated by its purpose. We must 
not, however, forget that while sometimes 
[88] 



SENSORY EDUCATION 

the sensory and sometimes the motor de- 
velopment of the child is the primary or sec- 
ondary purpose of a particular game, and 
while at one time his senses are isolated and 
at another fused, there can be no such for- 
mal separating of these two aims as has been 
necessary in our discussion of the subject 
in this and the preceding chapter. 

I think one reason why there is some 
difficulty in understanding Dr. Montessori's 
system of education from merely reading 
the book if one has not studied it at first 
hand in her schools in Rome, is because she 
follows one order of presentation in the early 
part of the book (in her chapter on Sense 
Training) and another in a later chapter 
where she gives the sequence that experience 
has proved best. I shall, instead, group the 
games as I saw them used most frequently 
in the best schools in Rome. Such an 
arrangement, however, is in no sense arbi- 
trary, and I believe that our experiences 
with American children may cause us to 
make changes. Our children have so much 
initiative and such ability to find a practical 
use for the games that such modifications 
as will fit these traits will be necessary. 
In the class I had last summer, I made 
[89] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

little use of the boards with strips of sand- 
paper for the rough and smooth exercise, 
as I found the same training in discrimi- 
nation could be gained by the children 
more naturally and enjoyably with other 
games. 

The first group of exercises chosen by 
very young children is usually that of the 
eight frames for buttoning, lacing, hooking, 
tying of bow-knots, and so on, which are 
called u Exercises in Practical Life" because 
they help the child to become independent 
as he learns to dress and undress himself 
As he plays with the various frames and 
learns how to button, lace, hook and tie 
bow-knots, his muscles become co-ordinated, 
and his sense of touch is refined. So these 
exercises are valuable, not only for motor 
education, as we saw in Chapter V, but for 
refining the tactile sense, which, combined 
with the visual, is so important in the 
child's development. With these exercises 
in practical life belong drill in habits of 
cleanliness, and therefore the child is shown 
how to wash his hands and face with warm 
water and soap. He quickly learns to love 
the delicacy of touch gained in this way, 
and to realise the sensitiveness of the fleshy 
[90] 



SENSORY EDUCATION 

part of the finger-tips, where the sense of 
touch is chiefly located. This is a good time 
for him to choose the boxes of fabrics, by- 
means of which he will quickly recognise 
differences between the feeling of silks, 
whether heavy or light; linen and cotton, 
both heavy and fine; velvet, woolen and 
leather. In one school I visited, the chil- 
dren showed a wonderful exactness in recog- 
nising these fabrics while blindfolded, and 
in matching with their eyes open different 
materials of the same shade, such as velvet 
or silk. The Directress of this school told 
me that many of the little girls now in her 
school would, when they grew up, become 
milliners or dressmakers; so this particular 
sense- training had its vocational features. 
These same little children were already 
helping their mothers to shop by guiding 
them in their choice of fabrics and colours. 
The transition from training the tactile 
sense by means of these fabrics to educating 
the chromatic or colour sense is made with 
the two boxes of coloured silks wound on 
little reels, which attract all the children 
greatly. This game appeals to many child- 
ish instincts: the love of colour, of putting 
, things in place, of invention, and by means 
[91] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

of it the finest discriminations of shade and 
colour are gained. Following the general 
rules of strong contrasts and of simplicity, 
only two colours, red and blue, for instance, 
are given to a child at first. Using two sets 
of each colour he matches one with another 
and gradually, as he plays with the eight 
shades of each colour, learns to place them 
correctly in gradation from the darkest to 
the lightest. After this preliminary play, 
he is ready for the first of the three periods, 
when the teacher will tell him simply the 
names of the colours, which are the darkest 
shade, the lightest, and so on. Many times 
while watching the children play with these 
reels of colour, I was corrected by little chil- 
dren of four or five years of age, whose 
ability to distinguish infinitesimal differ- 
ences of shades was marvellous. In this 
game the memory is also strengthened as 
the child, while putting away the reels, each 
in the proper compartment of. its box and in 
the true sequence of shade, remembers the 
right color as he takes it from the table or 
floor to the box. The habit of orderliness 
formed through this training in putting 
away each game in its proper position on 
the shelves, is one of the ways by which 
[92] 



SENSORY EDUCATION 

the Montessori ideal of discipline is obtained. 
The training of the chromatic sense by 
means of the fabrics and reels of silk, may 
be indefinitely extended as the child's own 
power of observation increases and he 
begins to notice the different materials and 
colours by which he is surrounded at home 
and in school. But we must heed the warn- 
ing not to furnish the child with informa- 
tion and not to force his powers of obser- 
vation or of generalisation. When these 
powers come naturally to the child they are 
his own possession, and make a much 
stronger impression. I saw an illustration 
of this point last winter, when, watching a 
little child making a picture of a tree with 
his coloured pencils, I saw his growth in 
self-directed power of observation. The 
first day he drew a tree very crudely, using 
only the red pencil, but was not corrected 
by the teacher. A day or two later he used 
the green pencil for the leaves, and still 
later, discarded the red entirely and used 
brown for the trunk and branches. This 
also illustrated the Herbartian idea of 
growth in apperception. 

The chromatic sense is also developed by 
the practice in drawing and filling in of 
[93] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

geometric designs with coloured pencils, which 
I shall describe later in its relation to wri- 
ting. Here the primary aim is to perfect 
the technique of writing, but the secondary 
aim, to refine the colour sense, is also aided. 
The child's first choice of colour is often 
crude and harsh, but the change to choice 
of harmonious and soft shades is most 
interesting. All these drawings are marked 
with the pupil's name and kept by the 
teacher, and afford good opportunity for 
testing his progress. I looked over dozens 
of such papers and saw the early attempts 
of children who were by this time making 
beautiful and very delicate combinations 
of colour on their designs. 

The thermic sense can, I believe, be 
developed more accurately by the use of 
little bags of sand heated to varying degrees 
of temperature than by the bottles of 
water heated to various degrees, or by the 
use of cold, tepid or hot water. The 
Directress in Rome who suggested the use 
of these bags of sand, gave as a reason for 
preferring them, the fear of confusion in 
sense-training that would arise from using 
the water. 

The development of the baric sense, or 
[94] 




SENSORY EDUCATION 

that of weight, is gained by the use of sets 
of wooden tablets all of the same shape and 
size. They are made, however, of three 
kinds of wood: wisteria, walnut and pine, 
which differ slightly in weight. This is an- 
other game the children delight to play 
blindfolded, and they show marvellous dex- 
terity in detecting immediately the slight 
degrees of difference in weight in the various 
kinds. A child will stand or sit with these 
little tablets mixed together in front of him, 
and rapidly weighing each piece in his tiny 
hand, place it without a mistake in its 
proper pile. 

The cubes and bricks of Froebel are used 
in much the same way to develop the stere- 
ognostic sense of feeling, which is a fusion 
of the tactile and muscular senses. The 
purpose of the education of this sense is to 
lead to the recognition of objects through 
feeling them, and all the material helps 
develop it to a greater or less degree, espe- 
cially when the sense is isolated. It is also 
helpful in leading to a rapidity of judgment 
through comparison of various objects, such 
as coins, different grains — rice, wheat, or 
millet — and other small objects. 

I found the sense of hearing exercised by 
[95] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

means of the game of "silence' ' and by use of 
boxes containing sand, gravel, pebbles and 
stones, which make a gradation of sounds. 
For the training in musical tones, the piano 
is used; also a series of bells graded to the 
scale, and other musical instruments. 

The senses of taste and smell are so often 
fused, and the olfactory sense develops so 
late that the training in these senses has not 
been very satisfactory. One Directress I 
talked with, however, feels strongly the 
necessity for educating more accurately 
both senses of taste and smell as a prepara- 
tion for useful lives. She had experimented 
for developing the sense of taste with salt, 
sugar, vinegar and quinine, beginning with 
a strong solution of each and diminishing 
it to a very weak one, and for that of smell 
with the odours of different flowers. She 
believed we should train for a union rather 
than a fusion of these senses. For example, 
she thought it possible to smell salt as well 
as taste it. 

I have left for final discussion a de- 
scription of the exercises for sharpening 
the sense of vision, and for the training of 
that sense combined with the tactile and 
muscular senses, because of their impor- 
[96] 



SENSORY EDUCATION 

tance in the intellectual or higher education 
of the child. As I have previously stated, 
the child at the age of three has had his 
sense of vision more highly developed than 
his other senses. What he now needs is 
practice in recognition of differences in 
dimensions. For this purpose Dr. Mon- 
tessori has devised some very important 
material, which she calls the Solid Insets, 
the Tower, the Big Stair, and the Long 
Stair. The Solid Insets are three in num- 
ber, each containing ten wooden cylinders, 
varying in height, or in diameter, or in both. 
The child plays with these by himself at 
first, as in the other games, and then learns 
with the teacher's help the different dimen- 
sions and their proper nomenclature: high- 
est, lowest; thickest, thinnest; largest, small- 
est; and all the intermediate grades and 
terms. There is an opportunity for group 
work here as three children often play with 
these cylinders together. The sense of 
touch is also perfected by means of these 
insets, as the child passes his fingers first 
around the cylinder, then around the cor- 
responding hole. 

The three large sets of blocks just alluded 
to, called the Tower, the Big Stair and the 
[97 3 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

Long Stair, appeal to children and give op- 
portunity for this visual training in dimen- 
sions, and for the education of the tactile 
and muscular senses. The didactic nature 
of this part of the material is not so great 
and the control is not so sure as with the 
solid insets. But in these games the eye 
easily recognises a mistake, and the teacher 
assists the child to detect errors by showing 
him how to pass his hand lightly up and 
down the steps of the Tower and Big Stair, 
or along the sides of the Long Stair. The 
Long Stair proves its value later, when, 
chiefly by its help, the child learns to count 
and begins the study of the metric and deci- 
mal systems. 

All of these games help to discipline the 
attention and the memory as the child 
carries the material to or from the shelves 
to table or floor and remembers the order 
in which it should be placed and later put 
away. They also afford a useful gymnastic 
exercise in poise as the child learns to carry, 
for instance, the tower, without dropping 
even the smallest piece. 

The thirty-two geometric insets of wood 
fitted into little wooden squares and ar- 
ranged in six drawers in a wooden case, are 
[98] 



SENSORY EDUCATION 

perhaps the most popular of any of the 
material with all but the youngest children, 
and the most useful in their variety of 
application. In the preliminary stages, the 
child is given a tray with several of these 
squares into which he learns gradually to 
place the proper inset. Here, again, the 
material controls the error, as only the 
right piece will fit into the right square. 
The child's sense of touch is developed as 
he takes each inset by its little button, and 
passes his finger lightly around it and then 
around the corresponding opening in the 
wooden square. At first contrasting forms, 
such as the square, the circle and the tri- 
angle, are placed on one tray, later analo- 
gous forms, such as the oval and ellipse, 
or rectangles of various kinds are given. 
The three periods are then followed as in 
other cases until the child learns recognition 
of the form, can select it, and finally name 
it. But usually only a few of the more 
simple names are taught, unless the child 
shows a desire to learn them all. I watched 
one day, a little boy of five who fitted into 
their places and named quickly and accu- 
rately most of the forms. It is very impor- 
tant to remember that these insets are not 
[99] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

for the purpose of geometric analysis of 
form which is to be carefully avoided by 
the teacher, but for recognition of form 
through the association of the visual with 
the muscular and tactile senses. In this 
way a muscular memory is acquired which 
will later be of the greatest importance as 
the child learns to write. With these geo- 
metric insets are used the three series of 
cards which have the same forms in solid 
colour, and in heavy and light line. The 
child takes first a group of the wooden forms, 
and with them the cards with the same figure 
in solid blue. His eye guides him to place 
the wooden figure upon the corresponding 
card, and his habit of touching is by this 
time so well established that he will follow 
the contour with his finger. He is then 
given the cards that have these same forms 
in heavy blue outline, and lastly those 
which have the form outlined in black. 
He now places the wooden geometric insets 
in a row and underneath each the three 
cards; first the solid blue, then the heavy 
blue outline which represents the path his 
finger makes in touching the contour of 
each form, and finally the thin black out- 
line, which is similar to the line his pencil, 
[100] 



SENSORY EDUCATION 

or chalk, or pen will make in design and m 
writing. 

With this series of cards he is passing 
from the concrete to the abstract; from 
the solid wooden form to the line which 
represents it on the paper. He is thus 
prepared for the art of writing, when he 
will use abstract symbols which he has 
learned through the use of the sandpaper 
and script alphabets. 

It will be better, perhaps, to leave for 
another chapter any explanation of the use 
of the material in its further purpose to 
assist the development of the higher or 
conscious life of the child; yet we must 
never forget either the unity and continuity 
of the method or the unity and continuity 
of the developing mind. We talk of motor, 
of sensory, of ideo-education in the same 
way that we talk of the different powers 
of consciousness — of sensation, perception, 
feeling, thinking, willing — because our point 
of view changes from one to another as our 
emphasis varies. In reality, however, there 
can be no such distinct or arbitrary division 
either in education or in the mental life of 
the human being who is the object of that 
education. In this and the previous chap- 
[101] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

ters we have had in mind chiefly sensory 
and motor education in its biological aspect 
as a means of increasing the power and 
efficiency of the nervous system; in the 
coming chapter we shall place the empha- 
sis on that higher form of education which 
prepares the child as a social being for his 
environment, and for intercourse with his 
fellows. 



[102] 



CHAPTER VII 

FROM SENSATIONS TO IDEAS 

"The greatest triumph of our education should be to 
bring about the spontaneous progress of the child." 

If education concerned itself only or 
chiefly with its lower function, that of 
perfecting the sensory life of the child, it 
would not rise above the level of the train- 
ing which is often given to animals; and its 
subject, the child, would not advance far 
beyond an animaPs degree of intelligence. 
Many animals have certain senses even 
more keenly developed than those of any 
human being, and possess senses — as that of 
direction — that we lack; and we all know 
that races uneducated in the true sense of 
the word may have a high degree of sense 
education. If too great reliance is placed 
on sense training as an end in itself rather 
than as a means, or if its purpose to in- 
crease the higher powers of the mind is 
forgotten, just as great an injustice is done 
as in the days prior to Pestalozzi, when sense 
or motor training was neglected for what 
[103] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSOBI METHOD 

was considered purely intellectual educa- 
tion. No system of education, however, can 
be made on the compartment plan; and as 
we have already noticed the fusion of the 
motor and sensory training in the early 
use of the didactic material, so we must 
keep in mind the fact that the child's train- 
ing in sense perception begins as soon as his 
consciousness is sufficiently developed for 
him to have knowledge of things rather than 
of qualities. 

Professor James in a characteristically 
apt expression calls the earliest state of the 
baby's mind "one big booming buzz of 
confusion." It has a feeling of warmth as 
it cuddles close to its mother's side, of 
satisfaction as it is nourished at her breast, 
of hunger or of pain if it is neglected; 
but all is at first most indefinite. Later, as 
memory develops, constant repetition of 
sense impressions as they are remembered 
build up perceptions of things so that it 
is almost impossible for us in later life to 
have a pure sensation. Years ago, after 
three days of uninterrupted travel across 
our continent, I left the train in the light 
of a western sunrise and was driven ten 
miles across the limitless rolling prairie to 
[104] 



FROM SENSATIONS TO IDEAS 

a frontier army post. I still remember most 
vividly the pure sensations I had that morn- 
ing of light, of colour, of vast space; but 
though I have since visited the same place 
more than once, I can never catch that 
first "fine careless rapture," for memory 
plays its part, and I perceive rather than 
feel. The baby's states of consciousness 
on the contrary are composed of pure sen- 
sations and it is only through this door 
of sense that the child gains access to the 
higher state of perception. So, although in 
the early stages of the child's education the 
training of the senses is of prime importance, 
and the greatest emphasis is placed on the 
use of the Montessori material for that pur- 
pose, the teacher must always keep before 
her the next step, which is to lead the child 
from sensations to ideas, from the concrete 
to the abstract, and on to association and 
generalisation. 

Just as she has often isolated the senses 
in order that the child's attention might 
be given to a single sense impression, so 
now she must isolate his attention in order 
that he may get definite perceptions by 
limiting his field of consciousness. If we 
analyse our states of consciousness we find 
[105] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

in them a definite sharp point called the 
focus of our attention which is centered on 
the thing to which we are at the moment 
attending, and the margin of varying degrees 
of clearness where many sensations may be 
received or automatic habitual actions set in 
motion which we may not at the moment be 
aware of. It should be the aim of education 
so to train attention that the child will get 
clear, sharp impressions which later he will 
be able to recall and associate with others. 
The auto-education of the child is inter- 
rupted by the teacher only that she may 
aid this clearness of impression, and her art, 
as we shall indicate more fully later, lies 
in the amount and purpose of that inter- 
vention which her careful study of the indi- 
vidual child shows him especially to need. 
Her greatest assistance will at first lie in 
the direction of providing him with a proper 
vocabulary introduced by means of the 
three periods. The child's native, instinc- 
tive curiosity is satisfied when he is given 
simply and clearly the name of the special 
object that is the subject of his attention, 
and through this association of name with 
object and from the muscular or visual 
memory gained as he handles or looks at 
[108] 



FROM SENSATIONS TO IDEAS 

it his perception is made more sharp. By- 
degrees she will use instead of the con- 
crete name of the specific object or of its 
quality, as warm, long, broad, the abstract 
terms warmth, length, or breadth. The 
second step tests the child's power of atten- 
tion as well as of perception as she asks 
"Which is red?" (or "smooth" or "cold") 
and the third provokes the motor response 
when she asks "What is this?" and is an- 
swered "Red" (or "smooth" or "cold"). 

The power of observation and ability to 
combine various perceptions which lead to 
association and generalisation of ideas vary- 
greatly with the individual and must not be 
forced. Proper sense training should lead 
to observation, which may be stimulated 
in the way noted above, but it is better to 
leave the child free to make his own obser- 
vations than to give him information which 
may satisfy him for the moment but limit 
his self-development. It is better, for ex- 
ample, to educate the chromatic sense than 
to give a definite lesson on colour. It is 
better to give the child abundant exercises 
in design and gradually develop his power 
of observation as well as his colour sense 
than to tell him just what to draw. Our 
[107] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

aim, as Dr. Montessori notes, is to aid the 
spontaneous development of the child's 
whole personality rather than to give him 
information. Temperamental differences in 
the children call for varieties of such aid; 
the principle to be constantly enforced is 
to give as little aid as possible. 

The same material is used as the child 
passes from sensory training to training in 
perception; the only difference lies in the 
point of view, the emphasis, and in the 
method for developing the attention and 
power of association through relating the 
child to his environment. Much of this par- 
ticular training is done with groups of chil- 
dren who use collectively the boxes of fabrics, 
of colour, of geometric insets, or the various 
stairs. Often one of the children asks to 
be blindfolded and will then take, for ex- 
ample, the fabrics, and as he passes rapidly 
over them, touching them lightly with the 
tips of his fingers will call out: " Heavy 
silk" — "light silk" — "Coarse woolen"— 
"Fine cotton"; the other children watching 
meanwhile with eager interest. Sometimes 
the teacher or one of the children will slyly 
add to the collection some other article to 
see if he can tell what it is. At another 
[108] 



FROM SENSATIONS TO IDEAS 

time a child, also blindfolded, will stand 
at a table with the wooden tablets which 
have already been used to develop his baric 
sense, and taking two at a time, one in 
each hand, will place all the heavy tablets 
in one pile at his right and the lighter in 
another at his left. The articles used to 
perfect the stereognostic sense, such as coins, 
seeds, and so on, are also great favourites 
with the children, who gain by means of 
their use wonderful power of discrimina- 
tion. I have dwelt on the importance of 
tactile and stereognostic sense training and 
have already alluded to the hand as a factor 
in human evolution, but its higher value 
in our perceptual life must be brought 
out. As Professor MacDougall shows in his 
monograph, 1 the hand is the servant of 
the brain without whose wonderful help in 
interpreting the world of space in which we 
live, help given also by the senses of sight 
and hearing, we could have no real percep- 
tion of the world. The hand of the sur- 
geon or the artist has a perceptive quality 
which we all recognise and which should 

1 The Significance of the Human Hand in the Evolu- 
tion of Mind, by Robert MacDougall, Am. Journal of 
Psychology, April, 1905, Vol. XVI, pp. 232-242. 

[109] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

serve as an ideal for emulation in educa- 
tion. When I saw the children in Rome 
playing in the way I have just described, 
I felt as if they could see with their hands. 
Those exercises which are used for inten- 
sifying the sense of vision may be used in a 
similar way for practice in an exact use of 
language and for gaining clear ideas as to 
dimensions, for which purpose the Solid 
Insets, the Tower and the Big and Long 
Stair are all helpful. The application of 
these ideas to the child's environment may 
be made very easily as he compares his own 
height with that of other children; notes 
the differences in size and shape of the 
various pieces of furniture; and if, in his 
care of the room, especially if lunch is 
served, he is taught to use with accuracy 
many terms such as corners, edges, top, 
bottom, sides, square and so on. The 
great diversity of forms in the box of geo- 
metric insets appeals more or less to differ- 
ent children as their sense of form or of 
colour is stronger. I was interested last 
summer in noticing individual peculiar- 
ities and predilections; one child would 
be attracted by a variety of analogous 
forms, the names of which he would be 
[110] 



FROM SENSATIONS TO IDEAS 

eager to learn; another would pass by all 
but a few strongly contrasted ones, such 
as a square, circle, or triangle. Dr. Mon- 
tessori believes that it is better to give 
these forms to the child in the plane at first 
for visual perception, as they are less com- 
plex and also most frequently met with 
in his surroundings; while the solid forms 
are presented to him later for training his 
manual perception. 

Much of the child's time in a Montessori 
school is given up to design, either free or 
in forms outlined by the teacher. The 
free design allows the child opportunity to 
express and to create as he chooses and is 
of great value to the teacher as a guide to 
the child's period of development and to 
his native interests and capacity. All the 
drawings are preserved, with the date, the 
child's name, and what he tried to picture, 
noted on each. A remarkable gain in intel- 
ligence and keen perception is often shown 
by these sets of papers. 

Dr. Montessori agrees with all kinder- 
garten teachers in the value she places upon 
free work in clay as well as with pencil or 
crayon, not only for the child as it serves 
to increase his power of observation and aids 
[ill] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

his muscular co-ordination and self-repres- 
sion, but also as a help to the teacher in the 
revelation of his personality. So by means 
of a great number of games spontaneously 
chosen by the child, who is aided as little as 
possible by the teacher, he is led from sense 
training to perception and through observa- 
tion of his surroundings to generalisation. 
This is a direct preparation for the highest 
process of all, that of conception or thinking 
proper. 

Just as perception is the result of the 
remembrance of many combined sensa- 
tions, so conception is generalisation from 
the experiences of many perceptions. A 
child has a number of different sensations, 
either separate or combined, of colour, form, 
and so forth, before he can have the per- 
ception of a horse or a dog, but he must 
have many opportunities to perceive horses 
or dogs before he will reach the concept, 
horse or dog — which is a generalisation. 
Such concepts he must have in order to 
reason, for reasoning is based on comparison 
of concepts from which by means of anal- 
ysis and selection one comes to form various 
judgments about them. Without language 
which gives the symbols for concepts we 
[112] 



FROM SENSATIONS TO IDEAS 

could have no rational expression of thought 
and therefore command of language, both 
written and spoken, must be the goal to be 
attained by the child. The next chapter 
will discuss Dr. Montessori's principles and 
methods of teaching reading, writing and 
arithmetic, three most important elements 
in the higher life of consciousness. 



[113 J 



CHAPTER VIII 

"THE THREE R'S" IN A NEW FORM 

"A great deal of time and intellectual force are lost in 
this world because the false seems great and the truth 
so small." 

No part of Dr. Montessori's book, no 
report of visitors to Home, has called out 
so much interested discussion as the accounts 
of her method of teaching writing, num- 
ber, and reading — to name these subjects in 
the order in which they usually appeal to a 
child in the Montessori schools. Here is 
something tangible, concrete; here results 
are definite; here a clear-cut comparison 
may be made with other systems. The 
" Founder" of this method deprecates the 
undue emphasis which is often given to 
this phase of it. She fears that it may be 
wrested from its place in the system, the 
unity of which will thereby be destroyed. 
It is necessary for us, however, to make a 
careful study not only of the method by 
which the child gains power to unlock the 
triple gate of knowledge, but of the psy- 
[114] 



"THE THREE R'S" IN A NEW FORM 

etiological principles on which the method 
is based and by which it is justified. 

Attention has already been called to the 
fundamental relation between our nervous 
system and our mental life (which may be 
expressed most simply in the diagram of 
an arc, thus: 



A, in-coming sensory current; B, out- 
going motor current) and to the fact that 
sensation always results in action, even 
when the action is inhibited before being 
expressed outwardly. The earliest life of a 
child consists, as was stated in Chapter VI, 
of very simple reflexes in which the spinal 
cord only is involved, the origin and control 
of these acts emanating therefrom. Next 
the cerebellum or lower brain receives a 
sensory stimulus and sends out a motor 
current to the large muscles. Not long 
after birth the higher brain or cerebrum 
begins to receive, in its visual, auditory, 
gustatory or olfactory centers, currents 
which pass along the nerves, connecting it 
with the organs of sight, hearing, taste, and 
[115] 



A GUIDE TO THE M0NTE8S0RI METHOD 

smell. Still later the rich sensory life reg- 
istered in the brain sets up associations, 
and our first simple arc diagram must be 
modified to suggest the complicated reac- 
tion of stimuli: in-coming nerve currents to 
sensory centers, currents between centers, 
then out-going nerve currents to muscles. 
Now if we bear in mind the special quality 
of the nervous system, plasticity, and re- 
member that every in-coming and connect- 
ing current makes an impression and that 
these impressions are stored up in the brain 
as memories, we shall realise the effect of 
the combination of impressions from the 
different sense organs that reinforce and 
supplement each other in the brain cen- 
ters, and we shall then comprehend the 
principle of multiple stimuli. 

In the process of learning to write a word 
as carried out in Montessori schools, the 
child sees the word, hears the sounds which 
compose it, touches the sandpaper letters 
which form its symbols and by the mutual 
reinforcement of all these stimuli, his mental 
image both sensory and motor is clarified, 
so that when he feels the impulse to write 
the word, he needs no copy. In-coming 
nerve currents carry the effect of a stimu- 
[116] 



"THE THREE R'S" IN A NEW FORM 

lus from all of these sense organs to the 
brain centers, and out-going ones set up the 
motor response of the spoken or written 
word. Such an interweaving of stimuli 
establishes paths of association so that a 
stimulus from one sense organ, vision, will 
excite the nerve centers of hearing or touch 
as well. With this psychological frame- 
work as a starting-point, let us now trace 
the actual steps in the child's advance to- 
wards intellectual life. 

In the previous chapter we followed the 
child's progression from sensations to ideas, 
from concrete ideas to abstract generalisa- 
tion, from perception to observation. This 
progress in the child's inner mental life is 
so gradual, so natural and unforced that 
it is like any growth in nature, difficult to 
follow step by step. The spring comes — 
the sap rises in the trees, the branches that 
have been bare are bright with the tender 
green of young foliage — but who has marked 
the change from one day to another? 
"Blue ran the flash across — violets are 
born." So the awakening of the higher con- 
scious life comes without observation, and 
no one can name the day or hour of its ap- 
pearance or the exact stages of its growth. 
[117] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

There is no arbitrary separation of the 
factors in the child's growth nor is he aware 
of any differing point of view. The ma- 
terial, as it has excited his curiosity, in- 
terest or attention and stimulated his ac- 
tivities, has been used in a more and more 
intelligent way. With and without the 
help of the teacher, his muscles have be- 
come co-ordinated, his attention trained, 
his sense perception refined, his power of 
discrimination increased. The instrument 
of consciousness, the nervous system, has 
thus been perfected while at the same time 
consciousness itself by the aid of the sen- 
sory-motor-circuit has been unfolding and 
deepening. Now the hand, the most deli- 
cate tool of all, can perform its part and 
give a power to communicate in a new 
language — and the child " breaks into wri- 
ting!" Let us analyse — as the child never 
does — the process which leads to this re- 
suit, and see how the material is used in 
that process. 

The process is complex; the elements of 
which it is composed are fused in reality, | 
but must be separated in order to be under- 
stood. Let us take the motor side first and I 
see how the child gains the necessary skill 
[118] 



"THE THREE R'S" IN A NEW FORM 

in guiding pencil, crayon, or pen so that the 
action becomes almost automatic. Among 
the materials enumerated in Chapter VI, 
is a case containing ten metal squares with 
insets of varying geometric forms. After 
the child has used the wooden insets, and 
has learned to recognise the forms and place 
them correctly in their proper squares, he 
is given similar forms in the metal insets 
together with drawing paper and coloured 
pencils. He first passes his fingers lightly 
around the inside edge of the metal square, 
then traces the same with his pencil on the 
paper, then he fits the inset to the outline 
which he has made and draws with a pencil 
of another colour a line around the outer 
edge of that. He thus gets the idea of the 
form and of the edge of the form. He will 
then fill up the outlined form in any colour 
he chooses. At first his result will be most 
imperfect; he has little or no control over 
the pencil, little idea of design. But if the 
teacher suggests the boundary within which 
the child should work and gives him plenty 
of material and time, the results will aston- 
ish her. Some day she will see the outline 
filled in with light, even, parallel strokes 
of the pencil in most harmonious shades. 
[119] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

The child without knowing it has gained the 
necessary control of hand and tool to make 
writing an easy and accomplished fact. 
During this period his tactile sense has also 
been developed by the use first of the rough 
and smooth boards, then of the sandpaper 
letters, while by passing his fingers lightly 
over and over these letters his muscular 
memory has been trained. At the same 
time he has visualised the letters by means 
of the script alphabet, and through hearing 
them sounded has gained also an auditory 
impression of them. By this three-fold asso- 
ciation of motor, visual, and auditory 
stimuli, his mental image of the graphic 
symbol has become perfected. Now he is 
ready to combine sounds into words and at 
the same time make the words thus learned 
with the script alphabet. At some happy 
moment he will realize his ability to write 
the word with pencil or crayon on paper or 
blackboard instead of with the script alpha- 
bet and he will delight in exercising this 
new gift. Very likely he will do little else 
for several days and will gain rapidly in 
ease and accuracy. 

I watched one morning in Rome a little 
boy take the final step which brought him 
[120] 



"THE THREE R'S" IN A NEW FORM 

to the new art of writing. For some time 
his control over the tools for writing had 
been very good. He showed his familiarity 
with the sounds of the letters as he touched 
them by naming them correctly. He had 
also combined various letters into words by 
the help of the script alphabet. That 
morning he formed the word u mano" 
(hand) on the floor with the script alphabet. 
Then he ran to the board, took a piece of 
chalk and wrote the word very legibly and 
in good style. Before this he had traced 
the letters so often with his fingers that he 
knew their sounds and had recognised them 
by sight. Now he had control of the pen, 
a visual image and a motor response with 
which to respond to any stimulus. After 
this he wrote in the same way several other 
words that he had learned. The next 
step was to put two words together, "la 
mano" (the hand) and then three or four 
to make a complete thought. From that 
day his progress was very rapid. Another 
morning as I entered the Convent school 
in Via Giusti, a group of children ran up to 
me to wish me "good morning" with their 
gentle courtesy, and one of them, a little 
girl, lingered to ask my name. I told her 
[121] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSOM METHOD 

"Stevens," pronouncing the vowels in the 
Italian manner, but that my first name was 
the same as that of the Queen whom they 
all love. In a trice she had taken the box 
of script letters and with them had made on 
the green felting on the floor the words, 
"Welcome to Signora Elena Stevensi" 
The teacher in passing made no correction 
but said with emphasis "Stevens — Stev- 
ens." The child listened and quick as a 
flash took away the i at the end of the name. 
Then she went to the blackboard where 
she wrote the same sentence with a crayon, 
forming her letters very beautifully, but 
erasing several until the form pleased her. 
The combination of courtesy, grace and skill 
in this little five-year-old girl was very 
typical of a Montessori child. This illus- 
tration also shows the power gained through 
this method to cope with unfamiliar con- 
sonant endings in a foreign tongue. Why 
cannot our American children conquer the 
difficulties of our unphonetic language in 
the same way? 

The effect of previous training in drawing 
and of the motor, visual, and tactile memory 
of the words which these children have 
acquired is to give them an inner vision of 

[122] 



"THE THREE R'S" IN A NEW FORM 

perfection which is astounding. I watched 
many children write, always with surprise 
at the power they showed to reproduce so 
perfectly the ideal, and at their power of 
self-correction; for having a clear mental 
image of what they wished to write, they 
were content to erase time after time until 
the result satisfied their standards. 

In a sense this process of learning to 
write has involved a similar one of learn- 
ing to read, but as yet it is not reading to 
interpret logical thought but for simple ex- 
pression and nomenclature. This seems to 
me true to the order of the child's develop- 
ment in which the senses and muscles must 
be trained before consciousness is awakened 
to higher functions. The steps are simi- 
lar to those we adults take in learning a 
new language, when our first efforts at 
expression are for nomenclature merely. 

At this point the child will make constant 
use of slips of paper on which are written 
words, phrases and sentences. These will 
often be used in the form of a game. The 
children seated quietly in their usual places 
have these slips handed to them which have 
been skillfully prepared and selected by the 
teacher. Each child opens his slip of paper. 
[123] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

reads the words written therein and then 
carries out the direction. There is oppor- 
tunity found for group exercises as the com- 
mands may involve the help of several 
children to carry them out. Or the teacher 
will at some moment in the morning write 
a question on the board and wait to see 
what child will be moved to write an answer 
underneath. By means of these and other 
devices, the idea takes root in the child's 
mind that writing is for expression of 
thought and a silent means of communica- 
tion. He is then ready to make the transi- 
tion from script to print and to learn the 
symbols for the printed page. This method 
of procedure reverses our usual order but 
I believe it is based on a sound educational 
principle. Most of the reading I saw in 
Rome — I use the word advisedly — was silent 
when it was for interpretation of thought. 
Dr. Montessori feels that to read aloud is 
an art demanding more maturity than the 
very young children possess. They receive 
plenty of training in articulation, pronun- 
ciation, and enunciation but it is motor- 
training and not confused with interpreta- 
tive reading. Among the older children, 
however, I heard some reading aloud per- 
[124] 



"THE THREE R'S" IN A NEW FORM 

feet in enunciation and expression. The 
children had in this art also the same posi- 
tive mental image of the spoken word as 
of the written. 

Together with this united training in wri- 
ting and reading comes practice in compo- 
sition. The idea of drudgery has been 
completely eliminated from the process of 
gaining technical skill, for the child's interest 
in his drawing has given him a motive and he 
has filled with eagerness sheet after sheet in 
completing one design after another, and with 
his free designs. He has quickly learned 
the alphabet by sound and sight and has 
combined letters or sounds into words. 
These words he has made into simple phrases 
or sentences in the manner indicated above. 
Just as a baby enjoys making the sounds 
which are finally to lead to intelligible 
speech so the child uses his new ability 
with the same zest. Reading is a pleasure 
to him because he has mastered the sounds 
and symbols; in the same way composi- 
tion is not an irksome task but has interest 
because he has acquired mastery of his pen 
and has a clear image of the words he wishes 
to use. I spent one morning at the school 
in St. Angelo in Pescheria in the room 
[125] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

where there are older pupils who have been 
trained according to Montessori methods. 
To one of the little girls who greeted me I 
gave as a souvenir of my visit, a flower I 
had picked the day before at Tivoli. I 
had forgotten the incident in my absorbed 
observation of the children, when an hour 
or so later the same child brought me a 
letter — which she had written without any 
suggestion from the teacher — in which she 
spoke of the foreign lady who addressed 
her in Italian, described the flower and ex- 
pressed her thanks for the little remem- 
brance. All this was written without a 
mistake or erasure and with almost perfect 
penmanship and was an example of spon- 
taneous composition, the result of pleasur- 
able activity. 

In the same room were children eagerly 
writing simple little compositions about 
"Water," a subject which they had discussed 
with the teacher the day before. They 
spent of their own volition over an hour in 
this way without any interruption by the 
teacher. They had in most cases very 
definite ideas of what they desired to say, 
showing they had the same power to get a 
clear idea as they had power to visualise. 
[126] 



"THE THREE R'S" IN A NEW FORM 

This clearness of conceptual thought, as 
well as of mental image came, I believe, 
from their interested attention and was 
only another result of their sense training. 

A teacher trained by Montessori must 
readjust her sense of values. Many things 
formerly considered important she must be 
content to neglect. Many other things 
acquire a new emphasis. In this manner 
she will conserve time and intellectual force 
and "the false will no longer seem great" nor 
"the truth so small. " . . . For one thing, 
she must forget preconceived ideas as to 
the order in which the different elements 
of knowledge are absorbed by the child. 
"The three RV may stand in turn for any 
one of the various forms of activity. One 
child will write before he reads. Another 
will make rapid progress in arithmetic, at 
first to the neglect of the other two factors 
in his education. For the order in which 
these have been taken up in this chapter 
is not one that is necessary to follow in 
practice with the children. Temperamental 
differences must be the guide. 

During the child's progression towards 
reading and writing he has probably in 
much the same way mastered the elements 
[127] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

of number. While his sense of touch has 
been quickened by the rough and smooth 
tablets, geometric insets and sandpaper 
letters, he has also used the sandpaper 
figures and acquired a muscular memory 
of them as he did of the letters. All children 
come to school with some knowledge of 
number as a foundation to build upon. 
As they use the Long Stair, at first for 
training in dimension and in discrimina- 
tion of length, they will recognise the divi- 
sions on the rods and gradually learn the 
series to ten. They will count by means of 
the red and blue divisions, one; one, two; one, 
two, three; and so on, until they can count 
ten on the three sides of the triangle which 
is formed by the rods when they are correctly 
placed. As they learn the sandpaper fig- 
ures they will soon learn to place them on 
corresponding rods. They will be attracted 
by the box of spindles and will take pleasure 
in placing the correct number in the com- 
partment as indicated by the figures which 
have been placed there by the teacher or 
another child. This will create an oppor- 
tunity for them to become familiar with 
the concept "zero" ordinarily so difficult 
for a child to grasp. "Zero is nothing/' a 
[128] 



"THE THREE R'S" IN A NEW FORM 

child told me when I asked her why she had 
no sticks in the compartment where was. 
This and other number concepts are devel- 
oped in many ways: by a variety of games 
in connection with the phrases used for 
reading and composition; in the game of 
silence; and in exercises in practical life, 
such as taking care of the room, and setting 
the table, and in numerous other ways, as 
with coins or with counters ranged in rows 
to show odd and even combinations. 

As they use the Long Stair, always a 
favorite game, the children will often show 
much intelligence and discover for them- 
selves numerical principles and their appli- 
cations. They will spontaneously devise 
simple exercises in the four processes of 
addition, subtraction, multiplication and 
division and so get very early clear con- 
cepts of number relations. They will vis- 
ualise the figures as they have the letters 
and use them for expression of numerical 
ideas, passing in this way from the concrete 
to the abstract as they did in learning to 
write. When a child has expressed a numer- 
ical idea completely with the Long Stair, 
as for example one added to nine makes 
ten, he readily learns the abstract symbols 
[129] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

expressing the same idea: 1 +9 = 10. I saw 
many children using their slates or the black- 
board to record all varieties of combina- 
tions without any dictation from the teacher. 
The more difficult combinations from ten 
to one hundred are learned with the help 
of a cardboard frame in which figures can 
be placed in any order desired and by means 
of which the decimal system may also be 
learned. The art of the teacher consists 
in careful observation and record of the 
progress of each child along this as in other 
lines of activity and by skillful intervention 
and assistance to give immediate impetus 
to the child's awakening intelligence. 
Group work is especially valuable here; 
the teacher may join one where several are 
playing together or she may observe such 
a group without mingling in it. Older 
children playing with younger not only 
help the latter but crystallise their own 
ideas. The same perfection of technique 
in writing numbers as letters and an equal 
ability for self-correction through motor 
memory and visualisation can be secured. 
By following this logical order as was done in 
gaining the technique of writing and reading 
for nomenclature, the child is again led from 
[130] 



"THE THREE R'S" IN A NEW FORM 

the concrete to the abstract, from sense per- 
ception to conception. Thus through the 
three-fold avenue of reading, writing, and 
number, he passes to the wide fields of 
knowledge open to him through the medium 
of language as the expression of conceptual 
thought. 

By this method, therefore, the child pro- 
gresses steadily and rapidly from that stage 
of sense activity which is thought of as 
the kindergarten period into the stage of 
intellectual curiosity and activity which 
we call the elementary grade. The fence 
between the two is completely broken 
down. The rate of advance from one to 
the other varies with the individual. No 
child should be held back whose instincts 
are ripening and who shows a desire to write, 
to read or to make number combinations. 
Many a healthy child loving work has a 
contempt for the kindergarten and wishes 
to go to a "real" school. Dr. Montessori 
firmly believes that to a child play is really 
work and she appeals to the earnestness 
inherent in his nature by her material 
which gives his active mind such food as it 
craves. 

There should be no fear of precocity. 
[131] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

The very word suggests one-sided unnatural 
development foreign to every idea of Dr. 
Montessori. Her great fear is that we in 
our zeal may seize on a part rather than a 
whole. By her method, honestly followed, 
many a child now forced ahead would be 
allowed to take his own time, just as other 
children would simply and easily follow 
their more rapid rate of growth. Nor 
should the growth of the child be mental 
only, for parallel with the advance in tech- 
nique, in mental imagery from expression 
along these three lines of writing, reading, 
and number should develop also true liberty 
and obedience. The child ought to become 
master of himself as he has become master 
of the tools which are to serve him. His 
spontaneous interest and his free choice 
should arouse and strengthen his power of 
attention and of will. 

A child reared in the environment of a 
Montessori school may well be compared 
to an architect of humble beginning, who, 
given the right opportunity and freedom to 
choose his own " helpers and servers," as 
Ibsen would say, rises to the eminence of 
master-builder. So a " Children's House " 
as it provides the proper implements of 
[132] 



"THE THREE R'S" IN A NEW FORM 

learning, the unique method, the atmos- 
phere of freedom so conducive to the libera- 
tion of the child's initiative — in a word, 
in its ideal equipment for an all-round 
development — may become the scaffold on 
which the child builds for future greatness. 



[133] 



CHAPTER IX 

THE MONTESSORI PARENT 

"The social environment of individuals in the process 
of education is the home." 

Two pictures come to my mind as I 
think of the subject of this chapter. In 
the first I see in the heart of one of the poorer 
quarters of Rome a " Children's House' 7 
in the center of a block of buildings that 
has been reconstructed to fit the needs of 
the tenants who inhabit it. The vision 
appears before me of a large, bright, airy 
room in this house, filled with little children 
who, though plainly and even poorly dressed, 
are clean, happily active, and intelligent. 
Their Directress is quietly busy, passing 
about from one to another of the group, 
always ready to respond to any need, but 
never very much in evidence. Assisting her 
in the care of the children as they come and 
go, or as they need practical help in one way 
or another, or else preparing the food for 
the simple noonday meal, is a mother. Be- 
cause of her love for her own child she 
[134] 



THE MONTESSORI PARENT 

gives tender care to all other children. 
Because of her thoughtful study of her 
child and her sympathetic observation of 
the teacher, she is able to follow intelligently 
and helpfully her methods and give her 
real assistance. 

The other picture reveals a beautiful 
home in the heart of the residential section 
of Rome. In a luxurious room, surrounded 
by evidences of wealth and culture, sits a 
mother with her boy and girl at her side. 
These are children of the rich, yet they are 
as simply dressed, as independent of service 
as if they had been born to poverty. They 
have known no other school than that of 
Dr. Montessori and their mother desires 
no other for them. At every stage in their 
progress she stands ready with encourage- 
ment, with a discerning knowledge of their 
needs, supplementing or carrying out at 
home all that they learn in school. Occu- 
pied and interested as she is in the social and 
philanthropic life of the city, she yet finds 
time for observation, for records, for ex- 
periments, for consultation. 

It is such a response from mothers in 
widely separated strata of society to the 
spirit of Dr. Montessori's teachings that 
[135] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

shows its power; and I see with gratifica- 
tion a similar desire on the part of Ameri- 
can parents regardless of class to under- 
stand and apply the theories set forth in 
her book. 

Whatever may be the reason — whether 
the prominence given to the movement by 
a leading magazine, or whether something 
in the system itself has struck a sympa- 
thetic chord — the fact remains that many 
parents have shown by the remarks they 
have made or the questions they have 
asked, that they have read the articles, 
attended lectures on the subject, or read 
Dr. Montessori's book most intelligently. 
The interest thus manifested is to be com- 
pared, I think, with that taken in the 
kindergarten movement in the latter part 
of the last century when mothers 7 classes 
and lectures on FroebePs "Mother Play" 
drew thousands of mothers from their 
homes to study how best to help their 
children. In view of these circumstances, 
it is fair then to ask the question: Can the 
mothers learn more from this movement or 
system than from the kindergarten; and if 
so, what is the particular message to them? 
Mrs. Dorothy Canfield Fisher has spoken 
[136] 



THE MONTESSORI PARENT 

as a mother to mothers and perhaps fur- 
ther comments on the subject are superflu- 
ous, yet I shall feel that one vitally impor- 
tant factor in the whole system is neglected 
if some discussion as to the relation of the 
parent as well as the teacher to this method 
is omitted from this book. 

There is a possible significance in the 
names that have been universally adopted 
to describe the environment of the child 
in the two systems. "Der Kindergarten' ' 
(the child's garden). "La Casa dei Bam- 
bini" (the children's house). In one they 
play, in the other they live; one suggests 
a part only of their life, the other the whole 
of it. The same significant difference is 
felt as one visits first a Kindergarten then 
a Casa dei Bambini; the former should 
be and often is amply provided with all 
that pertains to the child's development 
through play, the other suggests in every 
careful detail the complete life of a child 
in his varied activities including play. 
And the deeper relation of the parent to 
the Montessori system is felt pervasively 
in every true Montessori school, for it is a 
type of a home. There should be much of 
the mother in every teacher, and much of 
[137] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

the teacher in every mother, so that working 
together in intelligent partnership of love for 
the child, no divorce of ideals or of means 
is possible. The whole movement is in 
danger if such a copartnership is not estab- 
lished and its terms loyally kept by parents 
and teachers. Only in this way, can the uni- 
fied continuity and progressive character of 
the method be preserved. A true Montes- 
sori parent must, therefore, be willing to 
give much time to child study. 

What do we mean by " child study"? 
What does it involve? What include? 
These words have been a shibboleth of Ameri- 
can teachers for years. Classes for train- 
ing in its principles and practice are found 
in every normal school and pedagogical 
institute. A complete bibliography of the 
literature of the subject would be very 
extensive. Nor has this movement been 
confined to the teaching profession. The 
interest of parents has been enlisted; long 
sets of questions have been sent to them, 
systematic habits of observation have been 
suggested, so that in theoretical results 
already obtained, we are far ahead of Italy 
in this matter. At first thought it would 
seem then as if Dr. Montessori could add 

[138] 



THE MONTESSORI PARENT 

nothing to the work already done. But 
if we look deeper I think we shall find a 
clue which will guide us to the discovery 
of principles implicit in her system, which 
if applied in her spirit would make child 
study an even more vital and important 
factor in education than it has heretofore 
proven. Child study as it is often defined 
and practised, has been too formal, too 
much of a cut-and-dried thing. As teachers, 
we have snatched time from our over- 
burdened days of study or of teaching to 
follow a syllabus carefully prepared by some 
professor, and to make the observations and 
experiments suggested by it. If parents, 
we have followed with painful exactness 
the directions contained in some set of 
questions in order that we might make our 
records intelligible. Our chief purpose has 
been to gather facts, to compile statistics 
— which would throw some light on the 
problem — our spirit has been rather too 
coldly scientific. The key to the difference 
between such formal study and that which 
Dr. Montessori pleads for is found in the 
point of view. The emphasis is changed 
from the study to the object of study, the 
child. Observation, in a spirit of love, of 
[139] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

every manifestation of each living human 
being in its spontaneous expression of energy, 
and experiment based on such loving ob- 
servation of each child's reaction to stimuli 
of whatever nature, is, I think, what Dr. 
Montessori has in mind when she tells us 
to study the child. It is not a child ham- 
pered by the arbitrary position in which he 
has been placed, or bound down to tasks 
dictated to him that is the subject of such 
observation; but one left free to do the work 
he has chosen in the way he instinctively 
elects, thus revealing his unfettered per- 
sonality to the sympathetic insight of his 
parent or teacher. 

Such a revelation of personality is neces- 
sary if the teacher or parent is to direct 
with a wise comprehension the "sane and 
sturdy growth" of the child under her 
charge. A study of child psychology dem- 
onstrates that the native capacity of each 
individual — the brain quality, so to speak — 
while it can be developed and perfected, 
cannot be changed. This native endowment 
is fundamentally different in one child or 
another; just as the amount of nervous 
energy in each differs. The mother love 
or the teacher love should watch the un- 
[140] 



THE MONTESSORI PARENT 

folding life of each child with an absorbing 
interest and intense desire to help its normal 
expansion both mentally and physically. 

We have been accustomed to physical 
differences in our children— we do not 
wonder at blue eyes in one sister and 
brown in the other, or a graceful slenderness 
of form in the one and a robust sturdiness 
in the other. Yet we express naive sur- 
prise at psychical differences, which are 
just as much to be expected, and it is still 
difficult for us to look for varying capaci- 
ties and powers in the mental life of our 
children as well as in their physical. To 
free the life force, to guide it, to adapt the 
environment to it, to protect its individu- 
ality, to prevent any mutilation or impris- 
onment of it — that is what we mean by 
education, and such education must have as 
its inspiring force the study of the child. 

This study to be adequate must cover every 
side of the child's life, physical, mental, and 
moral or spiritual — with a complete recog- 
nition of the interdependence of each. "A 
sound mind in a sound body" has too often 
been interpreted as if it were simply an 
ideal instead of a necessity. We are gradu- 
ally yet surely coming to believe that 
[141] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

health of body means also health of mind 
and spirit and that the foundations of 
that soundness of body lie very deep. 
For years it has been a mooted question: 
Which exerts the greater influence upon 
the child, heredity or environment? But 
in this last decade, scientists and educators 
are coming to agree that even more impor- 
tant than either of these in its effect upon 
the child is the pre-natal period. So that 
study of the child really begins for the 
mother as she guards its pre-natal life. In 
her hands are often "the issues of life and 
death/' for whether the child that is to be 
born of her is blessed with a sound body, 
with a perfectly developed nervous system, 
or the opposite, often depends on her wis- 
dom and good sense during the critical 
period antedating its birth. After birth 
the study becomes more definite, more 
fascinating, more personal, as that little 
human wonder, a conscious life, slowly 
unfolds. 

I have alluded elsewhere to the prolonga- 
tion of the period of infancy, which is the 
prerogative of humanity, as an important 
factor in evolution. Plasticity as opposed 
to fixity is indispensable to progress. This 
[142] 



THE MONTESSORI PARENT 

quality is inherent in the human brain cells 
to a much greater degree than in those of 
animals, for the animal's conscious life is 
bound by those fixed habits of the race 
which we call instincts; he can perform at 
birth, as perfectly as he ever will, many of 
the acts necessary to his life. The chick 
pecks at its food and follows the call of its 
mother almost as soon as it is out of the 
shell. The higher animals with a more 
complex nervous system, such as the mam- 
mals, are more helpless at birth and more 
dependent on the mother who feeds or 
suckles them, and so have more of that 
plasticity which is essential for their develop- 
ment. But such dependence in the animal 
is very different in kind and degree from the 
helpless infancy of the human race. This 
period is a time which, as is well known, 
may be invaluable to the mother for careful 
observation. Much has been said of this 
lengthened infancy but little thought has 
been given to the period of quiet which our 
advanced civilisation imposes on most moth- 
ers as they recover from child-bearing. If 
the pre-natal period is a vital one in its 
effect upon the child's future well-being 
and progress, of corresponding importance is 
[143] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

this time of convalescence for the mother. 
Weeks of withdrawal from the usual routine, 
passed in close intimacy with the new life 
which has been given to the world may 
provide, if properly used, a wonderful oppor- 
tunity for forming habits of attentive and 
loving study of the baby which can easily 
be carried on after the ordinary duties of 
life are again resumed. 

This study to be effective ought to be 
most comprehensive. On the physical side, 
of first importance is a proper understand- 
ing of the laws of growth. The mother of 
to-day has learned from her physician the 
necessity for observing and recording her 
baby's weight at frequent intervals, but 
few realise the necessity for studying the 
child's growth in height, in chest expansion, 
and in other ways; or for some knowledge 
of the normal rate of increase. Professor 
Tyler's " Growth and Education" has some 
valuable chapters which parents and teach- 
ers alike might consult with profit. A bio- 
logical chart similar to that found on pages 
76 and 77 of "The Montessori Method" 
could easily be prepared by a mother and 
on it she could record changes in weight, 
height, breadth of chest, length of limb 
[144] 



THE MONTESSORI PARENT 

compared with length of trunk, and some 
cranial measurements. Such a chart could 
be continued by the teacher after the child 
reaches school age. The question of exer- 
cise is also very important. The little baby 
is normally very active and craves exercise 
without which muscular power would fail 
to develop and co-ordination would be im- 
possible. Most mothers have learned the 
wisdom of giving the baby plenty of fresh 
air and freedom in the manner of dress 
and position, so that the random, impulsive 
movements so characteristic and so valuable 
may have free scope. But a deeper study of 
the laws of muscular development would give 
the mother a clue to the kinds of movements 
natural to the young child, such as kicking, 
wriggling, grasping; and would guide her own 
attitude to these. In this she must exercise 
a wise common sense. Babies fondled too 
much, who are tossed and tumbled about or 
whose natural sleep is too frequently inter- 
fered with may have their nervous system 
injured. On the other hand, if a baby is left 
entirely alone, he misses, as Professor Tyler 
suggests, not only that opportunity for 
strengthening his muscular system which 
animals give their young as they lick and 
[1451 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

fondle them, but also the stimulation given 
by a mother's love. 

Still another question for careful consider- 
ation is that of nutrition. On this point also 
most American mothers of the upper class 
have the benefit of the advice of physicians 
who are also child specialists, and as a rule 
follow carefully their directions. But they 
lack first-hand knowledge of the intimate re- 
lation between growth and nutrition. Just 
as the environment of the school should be 
fitted to the needs of the child so in its pro- 
vision for cleanliness, sunshine, fresh air and 
quiet, as well as in its furnishings and deco- 
rations, should the nursery be adapted to the 
child's scale of dimeDsions and his sensory 
requirements. 

Because of rapid growth at this period the 
child needs a sufficient amount of food to 
supply the requisite energy, yet because of 
the immature condition of the digestive 
organs the nourishment must be very fluid 
and of the same temperature as the body. 
The baby does not need the food contain- 
ing starch and sugar which the adult craves, 
but does require albumen for the upbuilding 
of bone and tissue and a great deal of water. 
Thirst should be the normal condition of a 
[146 J 



THE MONTESSORI PARENT 

young growing child and he should not 
only have water in addition to his milk 
but frequent baths. 

But the physical is only one side of a 
child's nature which unfolds under the 
watchful eye of the mother. Inherited in- 
stincts and tendencies, innate peculiarities, 
special powers and capacities, one by one 
observed in order to be encouraged or 
repressed as they are helpful or harmful, 
gradually reveal to her the higher spiritual 
side of her child. The principles of libera- 
tion of the inner force, of non-correction, 
of independence and of true obedience 
must be accepted and honestly adhered 
to from the beginning. The principles of 
non-correction and independence, for in- 
stance, must make a strong appeal to all 
thoughtful mothers. We all know the type 
of child which is described by the ex- 
pression " tagged to his mother's apron 
strings" and we all know the secret desire 
of every parent worthy the name, that of 
making a man of the boy or a brave woman 
of the girl. If nagging or too much inhibi- 
tion is made the daily practice in the home, 
the child cannot develop along the lines 
which make for a strong individuality. 
[147] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

Of course the principle of non-correction 
must be correlated with that of necessary 
inhibition, and the wise mother will learn 
by this study of the child which one to use 
as the occasion demands. Ideals of service, 
distinctions between good and evil, right 
and wrong, truth and error, can be incul- 
cated by a watchful mother who directs 
with loving insight the development of her 
child. 

On the mental side, careful observation 
and study of the beginning of the sensory 
life of the child which develops conscious- 
ness is equally necessary. The foundation 
for that later sensory training in the school 
should be laid in the nursery. The Mon- 
tessori material provides for the needs 
and interests of very young children. In 
Italy children two years old are often seen 
in the Casa dei Bambini using the tower, 
prisms, and the frames. In America and 
England, where children enter school at a 
later age, this material might be first intro- 
duced in the home. The order of sense 
development, its relation to muscular con- 
trol and to the growing conscious life of the 
child are all worthy of careful thought. 
This period is one in which sensory defects 
[148] 



THE MONTESSORI PARENT 

can be detected and often remedied before 
they have advanced to an incurable or ab- 
normal stage. A mother whose unselfish 
love is strong enough to make her willing 
to devote the necessary time, with habits 
of thought, of observation, of systematic 
recording formed in the manner suggested 
above through the year of pre-natal life and 
early infancy, will almost as a matter of 
course persist in this method of study of the 
child until the time comes for her to bring 
him to school. Having been trained by 
these years of experience she is then ready 
to unite with the teacher in interested and 
intelligent co-operation. Or if she is so 
situated as not to have the advantages of a 
good school within reach, these same years 
of training will help her to apply prin- 
ciples of the method to the use of the 
material either by herself or in a group with 
other mothers. 

These considerations have naturally had 
reference to the class of mothers so for- 
tunately placed that they can command 
time for study and have intelligence suffi- 
ciently trained to undertake it. But for 
the mothers who are uneducated, who being 
wage earners have little time for such study, 
[149] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

the socialised school must give them the 
training which is absolutely necessary in 
order to supplement what they themselves 
would have given had they had time and 
opportunity. 

The next topic for our consideration is 
the parent's relation to the spirit of the 
system or movement. In any walk of 
life at the present day the parents are less 
with the child than was formerly the case. 
If they are wage earners, one or both 
parents must be absent most of the day. 
Neither has the tenement mother who stays 
at home always the time or aptitude to 
devote herself to her child. If, on the other 
hand, the mother is a social worker or 
philanthropist, a society, literary, politi- 
cal, or educational leader, the hours spent 
with her children are still comparatively 
few in number. What then is the solu- 
tion of such a situation? Can the school 
so unite with the home that it will to a 
greater or less degree supplement it or 
even take its place by supplying the home 
environment and fulfilling the maternal 
function? Only, I think, if the parent and 
the teacher are in sympathy so that each 
works harmoniously with the other. This 
[150] 



THE MONTESSORI PARENT 

can be accomplished if the principles which 
pervade and spiritualise the system be 
comprehended as fully and be followed as 
carefully by the parent as by the teacher. 
The liberation of the life force must be the 
aim of both, so that the child expanding 
in the atmosphere of the school, shall not 
be stifled at home. Perhaps in America, 
in "Your United States" as Arnold Ben- 
nett suggests, the danger is rather that the 
training in inhibition begun in school will 
not be adhered to at home. 

The parent's share in the education of 
the child in independence, obedience, and 
disciplined activity is very great, and her 
responsibility cannot be shirked without 
serious results. Equally with the teacher 
must she make clear to herself the ideal 
she wishes to reach. Even more than the 
teacher, for her temptation is greater, must 
she sternly repress her own desire to les- 
sen the child's freedom and weaken his in- 
dependence by over-service. Her duty is 
to study the nature of the child, protect 
its personality, foster its instincts that they 
may be trained into useful and worthy hab- 
its, liberate its energies and guard against 
the injury that comes from careless neglect 
[151] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

of defects of speech, of carriage, of motor 
reaction. 

This is a "counsel of perfection " of course, 
and only the mother who is genuinely 
desirous of giving her child its best heri- 
tage will or can follow it. To give the time 
necessary for all this entails a sacrifice, 
and the perfunctory teacher or the selfish, 
absorbed parent who is not willing to 
devote much time and energy to the cause, 
has no place in such a system. The weak, 
or lazy, or uneducated parent will give its 
child love perhaps, but not wise super- 
vision; and to such, much of what has been 
written will pass unheeded. I can only 
hope that in some indefinable way, and 
in a time not too far distant, such parents 
may become aroused not only to the natu- 
ral rights of the child, but to a sense of 
their own sacred obligations and respon- 
sibilities towards it as parents. Perhaps 
the message from La Dottoressa may be 
the very means of universally firing the 
mothers of the world to a proper exercise 
of their divinely given privilege — the sane 
and happy rearing of their offspring. 

One difficulty in the way of realisation 
of these ideals will be found in the condi- 

r 152 1 



THE MONTESSORI PARENT 

tions of American and English life. The 
little children of the rich are too often 
given over to the care of nurses and gover- 
nesses; the little children of the poor must 
be neglected by parents who as wage earn- 
ers spend a long day away from home. 
In either case, the opportunity for union 
and co-operation between teacher and par- 
ent is lacking. Whether these ideals if 
brought home to mothers all over the 
country, can awaken a desire for reform, 
both of certain parents as well as of the 
conditions, remains to be seen. Love can 
work wonders and the message of this sys- 
tem reaches the parents by way of their 
hearts. 



[153] 



CHAPTER X 

THE MONTESSORI TEACHER 

"The teacher has too thoroughly learned to be the one 
free activity of the school." 

The place of the teacher, or " Direct- 
ress," as Dr. Montessori prefers to call her, 
in this system of education is not easy to 
define; nor is the ideal suggested by it easy 
to realise. Since my return from Rome I 
have studied with fresh interest not only 
our American children but also their teachers, 
and I have felt as never before the justice 
of the criticism latent in the quotation which 
heads this chapter. I have also tried to 
make definite to my own mind the essen- 
tial difference between the best Montessori 
teacher as found in Rome and our own 
conscientious, intelligent, alert kindergar- 
ten and primary teachers. To do this it 
is necessary first to understand the princi- 
ples underlying Dr. Montessori's conception 
of a teacher, just as we have already at- 
tempted to understand the controlling ideas 
which spiritualise the method. If, as so 
[154] 



THE MONTESSORI TEACHER 

frequently stated, the root idea of this 
theory is to liberate the life force within 
each child and guide its spontaneous mani- 
festation into disciplined activity, then the 
teacher's place is no longer primary but 
secondary. Her chief duty is to observe, 
her chief aim, at first at least, the scientific 
yet sympathetic study of each child as a 
preparation for successful direction of his 
progress. Her watchwords are brevity, sim- 
plicity, concreteness. Her aim is rather to 
suggest than to dictate. She stands behind 
the child, not in front of him; she does not 
so much lead the child as follow him. 
"She gives a ray of light and passes on." 

The Montessori system of education is 
both material and spiritual; neither element 
is sufficient by itself and in a true com- 
bination the spiritual force is supplied by 
the teacher. The training in child study 
and in psychological principles that fur- 
nishes a scientific foundation for the modern 
teacher is not enough in itself, for, as Dr. 
Montessori teaches, "we must seek to 
combine the self-sacrificing spirit of the 
scientist with reverent love of the child. " 
A true scientist absorbed in his observation 
of some phenomenon of nature, forgets him- 
[155] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

self and his surroundings and sacrifices 
sometimes health or life itself in pursuit of 
truth. Yet the fact or manifestation which 
he studies awakens no love in him; that love 
is inspired by truth itself. The teacher, 
on the contrary, as a scientific observer 
deals with material that is human and 
lovable. Instead of the abstract love of 
truth which is the inspiration of the scien- 
tist there is the concrete devotion to the 
individual. " A little child shall lead them." 
Again, as a scientist studies an insect or 
flower in its natural environment, so a 
teacher should study the child in that free 
atmosphere of untrammelled liberty which 
only a schoolroom planned and furnished 
according to Montessori ideas can give. 
Plenty of space, opportunity for frequent 
changes of position, liberty to move about 
freely or to talk — the only requirement being 
respect for the rights and comforts of 
others — these are the characteristic features 
of such a Montessori school as I have already 
described. What is the teacher's relation 
to it and to the children who use it? She 
is no longer "the one active force"; rather 
is she the guide, the helper, the suggester 
in a social group, all active, all learning 
[156] 



THE MONTESSORI TEACHER 

discipline through work. She must her- 
self be taught some hard lessons of re- 
straint, of self-effacement. She must not 
yield to the desire to give information. She 
must be willing to offer to a child that true 
aid which comes from leading him to help 
himself. She must direct less and suggest 
more. 

What especial study of the child is re- 
quired of the teacher in order that she may 
play her important part as director of child- 
hood? In the first place, it seems almost 
superfluous to intimate that she must be 
endowed with a love of children and a 
capacity to understand them that will 
in itself arouse the mother-instinct latent 
in all women. In addition to this her 
early training for the position of teacher 
should have included thorough, human- 
ised, vitalised courses in child psychology. 
Following or accompanying this there should 
be special training in the technique of 
child study as Dr. Montessori understands 
and practises it. An opportunity for 
such training has now been given a large 
body of American and English teachers 
in the training school under Dr. Montes- 
sori opened January, 1913, in Rome. Our 
[157] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

Anglo-Saxon children will soon reap the 
benefit of that first-hand knowledge of 
technique which it is impossible to gain 
from any reading even of such an invaluable 
book as "The Montessori Method." Such 
a training will provide as a foundation 
some knowledge of anthropology. A teacher 
should become familiar with the structure 
of a child's body as it differs from that 
of a mature human being. She ought to 
learn the varying rates of growth of the 
different organs. She should understand 
how to take important measurements which 
will test that growth as normal or abnormal : 
measurements of the trunk with the child 
erect or seated, of the cranium, of the jaws; 
keeping at the same time a careful record 
of his increase in weight month by month. 
She should be taught how to facilitate the 
work of the school physician by arranging 
her class records in such a way that a bio- 
graphical chart of each child will be kept, 
to which parent, physician and teacher 
will have access. Such training for the 
methodical observation of the morpholog- 
ical or anatomical growth of each child will 
fit her to assist the mother in an early 
detection of any tendencies, which if un- 
[158] 



THE MONTESSORI TEACHER 

checked would lead to disease or deformity 
such as adenoids, curvatures, flatfoot, un- 
developed jaws and so on. In addition to 
this any defects of his sense organs, such as 
deafness or faulty vision, can be quickly de- 
tected and remedied as his growth in sense 
perception is observed. 

The teachers of the Montessori method 
in Rome who have, to a great extent, ab- 
sorbed the spirit of its Founder have gained 
from the training and the inspiration they 
have received, a wonderful power of intel- 
ligent comprehension of the child's actions 
at work or at play. These calm, quiet, 
restrained women who keep in the back- 
ground, who talk as little as possible, who 
carry the policy of non-interference almost 
to an extreme, have learned how to inter- 
pret child-life and how to give the helpful 
suggestion or explanation that will promote, 
not hinder, true freedom. 

Each child has a natural " brain set" 
which is peculiar to himself and should be 
noted by the teacher as a guide in further- 
ing his development. If he is " eye-minded, ' ' 
knowledge will come to him largely at first 
through the sense of vision; if "ear-minded," 
through that of hearing; and if "motor- 
[159] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

minded/' by his muscular sense and that of 
touch. This peculiarity of " brain set" will 
to a great extent govern his interests. The 
child of the visual type will be attracted 
by colour or form, or will be quick to ob- 
serve. If of the auditory type, he will be 
susceptible to the spoken word or to music. 
If of the motor-type, he will delight in active 
games or in handwork. As the conscious- 
ness of the child develops and his percep- 
tions are made keen and his power for 
logical thought awakens, this " brain set" 
will show itself in relation to these powers 
and should be carefully noted. I was inter- 
ested in observing two little girls whose 
reaction to the same stimulus was most 
interesting because so different. One of 
them had what is often called a verbal 
memory; her brain cells stored up and re- 
leased at will the name of the thing she 
played with. She learned the names of all 
the fabrics — silk, cotton, velvet; of the 
simpler geometric insets and of many of the 
colours and did not forget any of them. 
The other child, equally intelligent though 
in a different way, had little verbal memory 
but great power of association. Every 
train of thought in her active mind had its 
[160] 



THE MONTESSORI TEACHER 

connection with some other. A chance 
word overheard in the conversation of older 
people would awaken a whole set of associa- 
tions. Learning in her case will be quite 
a different process from that of the first 
child, and both should be studied so that 
they may be understood, and properly be- 
cause differently guided. I watched two 
other children as they played with the 
metal insets while making designs. One 
cared only for the form and was content to 
outline more and more accurately circles, 
ovals or triangles with no desire to fill in 
these outlines with colour. The other child 
cared little for the form but loved to fill in 
the outline with combinations of colour 
which grew more and more harmonious. To 
me the intrinsic value of this material is its 
variety of application and adaptation, not 
alone to the many personalities using them 
but also the many-sided nature of each. 
This free use affords the teacher or the parent 
an unusual opportunity for insight into 
child-nature. 

Such heedful, conscientious study as I have 

indicated of the ability and natural gifts of 

each child will be of immense benefit to the 

teacher as she follows her observation with 

[161] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

those experiments which she will make as 
she leads the child from the world of sensa- 
tions to that of ideas; but this study must 
be supplemented by a special training for 
such experiments. The problem now be- 
comes one of intervention, for the activity 
of the teacher must be more direct as she 
selects stimuli to which the child will react 
and gives simply, clearly, and concretely 
the knowledge for which he is ready. But 
her intervention should be as slight as 
possible that the child's own power may not 
be stifled. Her study of the child must now 
be almost instinctive or intuitive, for from 
her previous observation she should be able 
so to understand his nature as to know how 
much to give and how much to withhold, 
where to lead and where to follow. She 
should look forward most eagerly to the mo- 
ment when a child passes from perception 
to observation and then to generalisation. 
She should in every case respect the child's 
love of discovery and not force but await his 
spontaneous observation and the beginnings 
of his logical thought. She should not be 
surprised to find this progress in higher con- 
scious life appearing much sooner in some 
children than in others. 
[162] 



THE MONTESSOBI TEACHER 

It is only by emphasis of the principle of 
the passive observation of his spontaneous 
life, that the teacher can watch the develop- 
ment in the child of those native instincts 
which, trained into habits or suppressed 
entirely, will make of him an intelligent, 
well-poised human being. This unfolding 
life of the child must become of paramount 
interest to the teacher as she regards it and 
guides it so she may distinguish between 
manifestations, which should be repressed, 
and those to be respected. Her aim is to 
hinder or entirely suppress all harmful acts, 
that the child may in this way be brought 
to see the difference between good and evil, 
and to understand that being good does not 
necessarily mean being quiet. After the 
teacher has, through this constant devoted 
observation of the child's activity and 
through tactful suggestion, helped him to 
suppress wrong acts and has gained his con- 
fidence and love she is ready to obtain from 
him as a member of a group that collective 
order which is an essential training for life. 
Here the great psychological principle of 
habit comes to her aid; for when a child 
has been given a definite place to occupy 
in time of quiet, he will naturally by force 
[163] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

of habit return to it whenever in a similar 
mood. The school day affords many oppor- 
tunities for training in this collective order 
which a wise teacher will seize upon. The 
child's sense of harmony, of symmetry can 
be developed in this way so he will come 
naturally to desire and feel pleasure in such 
order. 

The teacher must also assist the child to 
gain independence by careful avoidance of 
any needless help. She must allow him 
from his earliest years to wait on himself and 
others, take out and put away the material, 
move the furniture, carry the dishes if meals 
are served, until she has aided him in this 
way to a conquest of himself and his envi- 
ronment. This independence so important 
to the moral life of the child may be fostered 
by the teacher through her appeal to the 
right motive. Dr. Montessori's insistence 
on the abolition of prizes makes requisite 
a substitution of other and better incentives. 
To inspire in a child delight in work for the 
work's sake and joy in creating is a much 
higher yet more difficult undertaking than 
to give material rewards. Here a teacher 
has to deal with contrary instincts and her 
wisdom is shown in the way she liberates 
[164] 



THE MONTESSORI TEACHER 

the one and suppresses the other. This 
principle of abolition applies also to punish- 
ment. Her study of anthropology as well 
as of psychology will help her to understand 
apparent willfulness or " naughtiness" and 
judge whether the cause is some dsfect 
which may be cured, some instinct not yet 
aroused or some other instinct already per- 
verted, or even arbitrary expressions of the 
teacher's will which the child does not under- 
stand. There is great danger just here of a 
misunderstanding of a fundamental part of 
the method which might be interpreted as ad- 
vocating a system which will develop a 
" mollycoddle" or a " spoiled child" or an 
irrepressible self-willed personality, a source 
of terror to the teacher. Such, however, is 
not the case; for a child reared under such 
a regime should become the embodiment of 
a strongly visualised ideal of a spontaneous 
yet disciplined, active yet obedient, person- 
ality that is to grow up under her loving 
care and observation. 

To a thoughtful teacher the child will 
unveil his moral as well as physical and 
mental nature. She must inspire him on 
his path to true obedience by first under- 
standing him. She will have ascertained 
[165] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

from her study of psychology that just as 
there is a different approach to knowledge 
by one child or another according to the 
strength of the sensory appeal, visual, au- 
dible, tactile, so when we consider progress 
towards behavior in one or another of our 
pupils we shall find varying types of will. 
This psychology of will has an important 
bearing on the moral culture of the child 
for it is will under the influence of emotion 
that determines conduct. In this way each 
child can be stimulated to his own highest 
moral unfolding through the liberation of his 
voluntary nature. 

Reference also should be made to the study 
of each child as it forms one of a group, 
whether at work or at play. Much has al- 
ready been said of the preparation for col- 
lective order and collective activity through 
individual training. This preparation if it 
has been successful will now place the teacher 
and each child of the group in a sympa- 
thetic relation to each other through mutual 
understanding and love, so that the response 
of each to each is as real as it is in in- 
dividual exercises. The teacher then will 
have a right to expect in this collective or 
group work not a mechanical, automatic, 
[166] 



THE MONTESSORI TEACHER 

drilled, devitalised activity but movement 
which is harmonious and united yet spon- 
taneous. The game of silence so often 
referred to is an illustration of this. The 
time when the child is at play in his hours of 
pure recreation, when he is out of doors or 
in the room with his toys, should be one 
very precious to the student of the child 
whether she be his mother or his teacher. 
It is when a child is at play that he is most 
spontaneous, therefore more interesting, be- 
cause unconscious disclosure of his person- 
ality will be made. The child's attitudes, 
choices, instincts, tendencies, capacities, all 
pass in review before the gaze of the thought- 
ful observer and give her clues to be followed 
in all her later intercourse with him. The 
Montessori directress like the kindergartner 
will find in the morning talks which corre- 
spond with the one to the " morning circle" 
of the other, many opportunities for helpful 
correlation of home and school. The child, 
expanding in the sympathetic atmosphere, 
tells of his recreation, of things he has noticed 
on his way to and from school, of little 
opportunities he has found for kindly, 
courteous actions, little services performed 
for the mother. The teacher can assist the 
[167] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

formation of good habits along these and 
other lines, and arrest wrong tendencies 
which these intimate talks will disclose to 
her, at the same time taking precautions to 
prevent any undue revelation of the privacy 
of the family. 

The teacher and the mother meet as the 
child enters school, each with a different 
equipment for study of the child, but both 
actuated by the same desire, the child's 
highest welfare. The results of such thor- 
ough observation on the part of teacher and 
parent alike should be kept for succeeding 
teachers who will afterward come into the 
life of the child, that their power to help 
his growth may be intensified by knowledge 
of his previous life, surroundings, habits 
and native tendencies and peculiarities. 

Can we make any simple practical appli- 
cation of these principles of child study as 
we consider, in turn, the teacher's relation 
to the child and to the material he is to 
use? As the teacher assumes direction of 
a group of children she has in her own mind 
a well-defined ideal of discipline; not forced, 
military, automatic discipline but that which 
comes from self- training and self-control. 
This ideal will be slowly evolved as each 
[168] 



THE MONTESSORI TEACHER 

child adapts himself to the atmosphere of 
freedom and spontaneous activity and grows 
into such a loving friendship with his teacher 
who is his guide, philosopher and friend, 
that he unconsciously adopts her sugges- 
tions. In the Casa dei Bambini, in Rome, 
which I have already mentioned, the teachers 
reside in the same block with the families 
of their pupils, and thus have opportunity 
for intimate relations with the children, not 
possible in a country where the co-operation 
I have referred to is not so easily obtainable. 
A shorter school-day also affords less oppor- 
tunity to come into intimate and affectionate 
bonds of sympathy and interest without 
which the Montessori ideal of discipline can- 
not be fulfilled. 

An American or English teacher must 
free herself from many preconceptions if 
she is to enter into the spirit of this method. 
She should realize, even more fully than she 
has, that the child's self activity must be 
provoked, his interest stimulated and his 
auto-education assisted along those lines 
which he himself chooses. She must shift 
her point of view from the subject matter 
to that of the child. She must learn to feel 
less anxiety lest a definite amount of infor- 
[169] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

Hiation for which she feels responsible may 
not reach the child. We feel that our duty 
to a child in the elementary school is not 
performed unless he has each day a full and 
varied program consisting of considerable 
training in English and arithmetic, some 
geography, some history, some nature work 
and manual training and in addition physical 
culture. My first impression as I visited 
in Rome one school after another where 
there were older children was always one of 
leisure, of calm, of freedom from anxiety 
lest these children should not receive the all- 
round education provided for by the course 
of study. I felt at first that something was 
lacking when a morning would pass without 
any geography or nature work for the older 
pupils. Then I began to realise that chil- 
dren naturally work intensively rather than 
extensively and that the teachers in following 
to its logical end the principle of spontaneous 
activity, allow their energies full outlet in 
one direction at a time. I saw four little 
girls, seated together at a table, .spend the 
whole morning — except that part of it de- 
voted to collective games — in writing. I saw 
another group so interested one day in the 
study of design that all their work had that 
[170] 



THE MONTESSORI TEACHER 

idea for a focus. Here the art of the teacher 
was brought into play when by tactful sug- 
gestion the children were led to other fields 
of activity. This simple, intensive, self- 
directed, spontaneous activity of the pupil 
affords the teacher ample time for methodical 
observation of this expression of liberty; and 
for careful records of those observations. 
The teacher must be competent through 
nature and training to assume the role of 
respectful observer of an active individual 
who, especially in very early years, must 
have perfect freedom, and she must therefore 
carefully refrain from imposing arbitrary 
tasks. 

Those stages in the progress of a child 
which we have tried to distinguish in the 
three chapters on motor, sensory, and 
ideo education stand in a very definite re- 
lation to the teacher but in differing ways. 
The first period, that in which the child 
becomes accustomed to the liberty of a 
Montessori schoolroom, is perhaps one to 
test to the utmost the ability of the teacher 
and one in which she will probably feel 
the greatest discouragement. For she must 
have a strong grasp of the spirit of the 
method, tact and wisdom to refrain from 
[171] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

checking any spontaneous manifestations of 
the child's individuality and equal wisdom 
in checking vicious or dangerous impulses. 
I found the greatest contrasts at just these 
points. The failures were teachers who 
could not balance expression and repres- 
sion or suppression, who could not distinguish 
between orderly disorder and purposeless 
confusion, who did not know when to 
act and when to refrain. The successful 
teachers, and they were in the majority, I 
am glad to say, had poise, loving insight, 
power to keep themselves in the back- 
ground, together with a strong persuasive in- 
fluence that guided or suppressed without 
compulsion. 

The second step in the child's education, 
that of refining and perfecting the senses 
so as to prepare him for the higher life of 
perception and of thinking, is, as we have 
seen, largely auto-educative. The teacher's 
place at first, as has been so often stated, is 
purely secondary and passive. She must 
resist her desire to correct the child's 
blunders and to aid his progress. This is 
the period when her observation of the child 
should be constant, sympathetic and inter- 
pretive, but not preventive. As the child 
[172] 



THE MONTESSORI TEACHER 

uses one piece of the material after another 
and by means of it refines his perceptions 
and his power of discrimination the teacher 
must be content simply to watch the child 
use the material and observe and record its 
effects upon him. Then as the three periods 
are followed the guidance of the teacher 
becomes more direct and her method in- 
cludes experiment with observation. That 
is, the teacher uses the didactic material 
with which to make an experiment and 
then awaits and notes the child's response 
in the same way that a chemist performs 
an experiment, awaits the reaction and 
then records the result. Certain definite 
ideas should animate the teacher in this 
important guidance of the child. She must 
remember that the effect should be not 
fatigue but pleasure; that she must inter- 
vene to prevent fatigue; that it is her es- 
pecial function to direct the child in both 
his physical and mental development. She 
must remember the value of repetition in 
refining the sense perception; that it is nec- 
essary sometimes to isolate the senses and 
sometimes to fuse them. For example, the 
sense of hearing or of touch becomes more 
acute when the child is blindfolded; on the 
[173] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

other hand muscular memory as developed 
by the fusion of the sensations of vision, 
sound and touch renders intellectual progress 
much more rapid and in fact explains the 
"explosion into writing" that seems so re- 
markable. She should present the material 
with great simplicity, using as few words 
as possible, at first in strong contrast then 
with very slight variation of form, colour, 
weight or size. Each of the three periods 
of Seguin of which so much is being said, 
has its own definite value at this stage. In 
the first the child learns to associate the 
sense perception with the name of the 
object — "This is red." In the second he 
learns to recognise the object as he hears 
the name — ' ' Give me the red." In the third 
and most difficult he remembers the name 
which corresponds to the object — "What is 
this?" "Red." Here again she must en- 
force the principle of non-correction, and 
if the child makes a mistake, she should 
return to the earlier periods and await the 
moment when he is ready for the third one. 
Perhaps the point at which the influence of 
the teacher becomes most effective is in the 
third great stage of his development when 
the child passes from sensations to ideas, 
[174] 



THE MONTESSORI TEACHER 

from perception to apperception, from the 
concrete to the abstract, from observation 
to generalisation. The problem now con- 
fronting her is how she can best guide the 
child to concentrate on the object just as 
she previously helped him to isolate his 
senses in order to perfect them. The solu- 
tion of this problem is made easier by the 
use of the first of the three periods when 
the child associates the name with the 
object, and is led in this way to exact dis- 
crimination in the use of words. She should 
watch for the moment when the child begins 
by observation to generalise and apply the 
ideas he has received to his surroundings. 
I have already described this progress in a 
little boy as he used the colour pencils and 
by observation corrected his first crude 
ideas. I saw another child draw a rude 
figure of a man with simple straight lines 
for legs and arms. A fellow pupil in passing 
added five strokes at the end of each line to 
indicate the fingers and toes, showing that 
he had observed more than the first child. 

I was interested in contrasting two les- 
sons on the subject of colour which I ob- 
served; the first in a kindergarten in Rome, 
the second in one of the best of the Mon- 
[175] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

tessori schools. In the first school the 
teacher stood in front of fifty children 
each of whom had on the desk in front of 
him red, blue and green balls of wool. 
She first destroyed the unity of her lesson 
and confused the children by pointing to a 
chart behind her on which sheep were 
painted, telling them their balls were made 
of such wool. Then she told each child 
to dangle his ball by the string attached 
to it, thus giving him the idea of a bell. 
She next took three tumblers of water 
each of which held one of the primary 
colours and by mixing them together pro- 
duced the secondary colours, the names 
of which she taught the children. This 
was an example of too much teaching with 
the effect of hampering instead of aiding the 
child's power to make general use of special 
sense training. The other lesson was also 
what the Montessori teacher who gave it 
would call a collective one. She had 
brought in with her some beautiful speci- 
mens of leaves just changing into their 
autumn hues and placed them on her desk 
with no remarks. Some children, attracted 
by the novelty, attempted to sketch them 
with their coloured pencils or in water-colours. 
[176] 



THE MONTESSORI TEACHER 

Those children whose sense of colour was 
well developed reproduced the tints almost 
perfectly, others with various degrees of cru- 
dity; but all worked spontaneously. The 
art of this particular teacher was shown 
in her ability to intervene to a greater or 
less degree as the child needed much or 
little help. In other words, the teacher 
can so direct the efforts of the child that he 
gains quickly a sense of power and ease 
rather than of failure and discourage- 
ment. 

That the child's love of knowledge is 
instinctive is demonstrated by the ques- 
tions which are so characteristic of him. 
We can help him to gain the knowledge 
that he seeks by telling him simply and 
clearly the names and attributes of the 
things that make up his environment. In 
this way he will by a slow yet certain process 
gain abstract ideas of form, colour, tempera- 
ture or size, which he will soon apply 
properly. 

In the period when the child passes from 
drawing to writing and reading, from the 
early use of the Long Stair as a sense exercise 
to its subsequent use as a medium for 
number teaching, the relation of the teacher 
[177] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

to her pupil becomes still closer. She 
assists the child in all those exercises with 
pencil or finger by means of which he ac- 
quires the technique of writing. She stimu- 
lates his desire to read by giving, through 
the medium of a game, simple phrases or 
written commands which he can obey; and 
in thus learning to read first for nomen- 
clature and not for the expression of logical 
thought, he acquires the needed skill. He 
is then ready for that higher process of 
interpreting ideas from written signs, which 
is what is really meant by reading. The 
teacher must observe the child to ascertain 
when the idea of reading as a logical lan- 
guage dawns upon him, and in that instant 
he is ready for the practise in composition 
which should precede logical reading. In 
anticipation of this moment she will have 
prepared a number of long sentences written 
on cards or on the board with which to 
attract his attention. As he reads them in 
silence and follows the thoughts they con- 
tain, the idea is brought home to him that 
written language is another medium of 
expression, and he will delightedly resort 
to the use of this new method. 

Such a relation between the teacher and 
[178] 



THE MONTESSORI TEACHER 

her pupils and such a conception of her 
office as one of observation, stimulation 
and experiment as I have tried to portray, 
cannot be realised without thorough prepara- 
tion and training. In addition to psycho- 
logical, biological and anthropological studies 
she should have very thorough courses in 
the use of the material as a means for train- 
ing the senses, especially that of touch. 
Theory in the shape of educational psychol- 
ogy and practice in the application of this 
theory by means of the material are two 
essential factors in a teacher's preparation 
if she is to make clear to herself the purpose. 
A Montessori teacher who has had the 
usual kindergarten or normal school train- 
ing will have to unlearn much that has 
seemed vital in the other systems. For 
this reason she should have opportunity for 
observation of a Montessori teacher and 
practise in a Montessori school. If her 
ideal is that "wise passivity" spoken of by 
Wordsworth, if brevity instead of fluency, 
restraint instead of action, suggestion in- 
stead of dictation are to be her watchwords, 
she will need to make herself over — not an 
easy task and not to be accomplished with- 
out much trying of soul. But the reward 
[179] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

is great — the joy of seeing, as a result, the 
unfolding of a human life, a joy in which 
the parent and teacher, working in harmo- 
nious co-operation, each has a share. 



[180] 



CHAPTER XI 

THE MONTESSORI MOVEMENT AND ITS 
CRITICS 

"An elementary school loyal to the principles of re- 
spect for the freedom of the child in its spontaneous 
manifestation. " 

Since my return from Italy I have marked 
a significant change in the nature of the 
interest aroused in Dr. Montessori and her 
theories — a change so significant that we 
may well choose as the subject of this chap- 
ter, the Montessori Movement, its growth, 
its characteristics, the criticisms it has re- 
ceived, and its probable effect on the 
school systems of England and the United 
States. 

The cause of this interest has curiously 
reversed the usual order. Under ordinary 
circumstances a new movement in educa- 
tion or a new discovery in science finds its 
way into the popular press long after it has 
been discussed in academic or scientific 
circles. In the case of Dr. Montessori 
and her system, whatever may be true in 
[181] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

England, most Americans first heard of her 
through the articles in a well-known maga- 
zine. Those graphic accounts of early visits 
to the Montessori schools in Rome aroused 
a degree of popular interest and enthusiam, 
such as a discussion in educational circles 
would never have received. One article 
followed another, courses of lectures were 
given, a school was opened in the United 
States, the subject was discussed at kinder- 
garten meetings, a translation in English 
of the " Method" had a large circulation, 
not only in England and America, but all over 
the world, and finally trained observers 
were sent to Rome as official representatives 
of educational institutions. 

In the meantime we have entered upon the 
second phase of this movement. The first 
was that of the heralds; the spies went into 
the land of Canaan and brought back very 
large bunches of grapes. The stories of the 
miracles, of the wonders seen, aroused tre- 
mendous interest, and there was great 
danger that the ancient national experience 
would once more be repeated of a wild 
enthusiasm and a fickle public leading to a 
senseless reaction. The second phase, for- 
tunately, has been that of the trained inves- 
[182] 



THE MOVEMENT AND ITS CRITICS 

tigators who have visited the Italian schools 
in sufficient numbers to create a body of 
intelligent exponents and critics of the Mon- 
tessori theories and methods as they are 
found there. The third phase will come as 
the teachers return to England and America 
from courses with Dr. Montessori, prepared 
to teach according to her training and by 
her authority. The fourth phase should be 
that of experiment by these teachers with 
possible adaptation and amplification; a 
phase made necessary on account of the 
temperament and environment of the Ameri- 
can and English child, so different from that 
of the Italian. It is a phase with which, I 
believe, Dr. Montessori will be in entire 
sympathy, for she is so thorough a believer 
in a positive pedagogy for the future, based 
on observation and experiment that she will 
herself be one of the first to make such 
changes and amplification as further experi- 
ence proves necessary. 

While we await the third and fourth 
stages of this movement in America, let us 
examine as carefully and impartially as 
possible the discussion that has followed the 
return of so many professional investigators. 
These discussions may be grouped for our 
[183] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

purpose under two heads: first, those that 
consider the movement as affecting our 
kindergartens as they are at present estab- 
lished in the United States; and, second, 
those that criticise the system in view of the 
advance in educational theory and practice 
in this country, and also in its relation 
to modern pedagogical and psychological 
beliefs. 

The kindergarten, in spite of much severe 
criticism in recent years, is strongly en- 
trenched in our educational system. It is 
perhaps better organized than any other 
dejDartment of our schools, and although its 
adherents may be grouped under two classes, 
the conservatives and the progressives, there 
is a strong bond uniting them — loyalty to a 
common principle. The leaders in kinder- 
garten circles were inclined at first to view 
with alarm the wide-spread attention given 
to the Montessori system, and to set them- 
selves in opposition to it. But the sober 
second thought of those who were fair 
minded and receptive, recognised the fact 
that in the evolution of educational princi- 
ples, another great era had been arrived at 
which should not be dismissed with contempt 
or belittled by sarcasm, but studied most 
[1841 



THE MOVEMENT AND ITS CRITICS 

conscientiously and intelligently. In conse- 
quence of this fairer attitude of mind shown 
by influential leaders, kindergartners all over 
the country have read Dr. Montessori's 
book, attended lectures, made her theories 
a subject for discussion, and in addition to 
this have heard the reports of those of their 
number who have visited Rome for first- 
hand knowledge. As many kindergartners 
are enrolled among those to take the training 
course in the winter of 1913 in Rome, the 
mooted question of substitution of one 
system for the other, or of modification of 
each by the other, should be held in abeyance 
until a number of schools under trained 
Montessori teachers have been opened as 
experiment stations, where those modifi- 
cations and adaptations which wisdom and 
experience will find expedient, may be 
slowly and harmoniously tested. By fol- 
lowing out this plan a sense of security and 
belief will arise that can, in my opinion, be 
inspired in no other way. 

Such discussions as I have outlined above 
have been entirely practical; those that 
involve a criticism of the system on peda- 
gogical and psychological grounds, while 
more theoretical, are none the less important, 
[185] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

and the method should be weighed most 
carefully and tested most thoroughly in 
view of these criticisms. 

Because of two prominent characteristics 
of the method — the importance given to 
the individual and the stress laid on sense 
training — the assertion is made that Dr. 
Montessori is to be classed with Rousseau 
and Pestalozzi and is therefore out of date. 
Because of her cardinal principle of setting 
free the personality of each child through 
auto-education, some fear that she is opposed 
to the Herbartian doctrine of apperception 
which is so widely accepted at the present 
time. Because of the formal, scientifically 
exact nature of much of the material used 
for the training in sense perception many 
think the purpose to be formal discipline, 
an idea opposed to modern psychological 
beliefs. Again, on account of the didactic 
nature of the material they feel that the 
quality of freedom is strained, and that there 
is no real liberty, and little opportunity for 
initiative or creative, imaginative expression. 

Let us take up each of these points in 

turn: that the system is old-fashioned and 

in the class with Rousseau and Pestalozzi; 

that it is opposed to the Herbartian doctrine 

[186] 



THE MOVEMENT AND ITS CRITICS 

of apperception; that it trains for formal 
discipline — a theory discarded by modern 
psychologists; and that the liberty of the 
child is restricted and no opportunity given 
him for creative, constructive or imaginative 
expression, and see if they are well taken. 

If the evolutionary doctrine holds in 
education as elsewhere, we expect to find 
the present expanding from the past, and 
should study Dr. Montessori as the latest in 
a long line of thinkers and find in her the 
influences of her great predecessors. A 
creative genius does not create the materials 
with which he works, but out of old parts 
evolves a new whole which is his original 
contribution, his gift to the world. A 
creative genius hammers the dead iron of 
the past on the anvil of present experience 
in the fire of a living enthusiasm and so 
forges a new implement for the future to 
wield. In such a system as Dr. Montessori' s, 
therefore, we find elements derived from 
previous philosophies of education com- 
bined with a unique contribution which 
marks its advance over them. There is an 
apostolic succession in education as in the- 
ology, a laying on of hands as the spark is 
handed down to succeeding generations — 
[187] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

"I am the owner of the sphere 
Of the seven stars and the solar year, 
Of Caesar's hand and Plato's brain, 
Of the Lord Christ's heart and Shake- 
speare's strain." 

We need not be surprised, then, to discover 
in the philosophy underlying Dr. Montes- 
sori's theories and practice many ideas from 
the past which have stood the test of time 
and have survived because of it, and should 
not feel that the presence of such influences 
means reversion instead of progress. They 
survive, shorn of all that was temporary, and 
unite with other elements of that universal 
and permanent Truth towards which we 
aspire. 

We find either expressed or implied in the 
Montessori theory of education Rousseau's 
belief in individual training without the ex- 
treme isolation suggested by "Emile" or 
that complete return to nature as a teacher 
which he advocated. In it is the unifying 
principle of Froebel and his theory of self- 
activity freed from his symbolism and erro- 
neous ideas of geometric analysis; the sense 
training of Pestalozzi as a basis for higher 
thought processes and not for formal dis- 
cipline; the apperceptive ideas of Herbart 
[188] 






THE MOVEMENT AND ITS CRITICS 

combined with the doctrine of effort; the 
Bergsonian belief in intuition; the Fichtian 
conception of will ; and the Emersonian idea 
of freedom limited by law. Because all these 
ideas have stood the test of her long years 
of experience in her vision of truth she is a 
pragmatist as well as an idealist. She 
hitches her wagon to a star, her conception 
of truth has grown out of a practical applica- 
tion of theory to life. 

We may perhaps understand more clearly 
the nature of Montessori's original contri- 
bution to the evolution of an educational 
system if we now compare her with her 
great predecessor Froebel. • 

Froebel and Montessori especially lend 
themselves to a comparative study because 
both had genius of the creative, intuitive 
order; both could rationalise a system and 
both could devise the practical materials and 
methods in which to embody it. They 
differed in preparation, in point of view, in 
emphasis, and in method of approach as 
well as in the concrete form in which they 
clothed their theories. Let us take these 
two great geniuses in turn in relation to each 
of these points. 

Froebel lived in Germany during a period 
[189] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

of philosophical thought. Metaphysics was 
in the very air he breathed. Of scientific 
training, as the twentieth century under- 
stands it, he had little. He lived in a retired 
German village the simple life of its school- 
master. He saw deeply into the heart of a 
child. He intuitively understood its need 
for self-activity, and realised the value of 
play. He awakened the mothers, just as 
Rousseau had before him, to a sense of their 
rights, privileges, and duties; but lacking a 
scientific training, a knowledge of child- 
psychology, and of biology, his preparation 
and experience led him to take a philosoph- 
ical rather than a biological point of view. 
He had the philosopher's vision of the 
Universe into which the child was to be 
introduced. He saw or thought he saw 
fundamental laws of unity with which the 
child must come into harmony. His deeply 
religious nature dwelt on spiritual abstrac- 
tions until they seemed inherent in ail mate- 
rial manifestations. This point of view ne- 
cessitated a peculiar emphasis which affected 
both his choice and presentation of material. 
Philosophical laws guided his selection; 
abstract ideas decided the order of presenta- 
tion. To his mind, largely that of the mys- 
[190] 



THE MOVEMENT AND ITS CRITICS 

tic, truth appeared in the guise of symbol, 
the outer form of which must typify 
the inner spirit. For that reason FroebePs 
method of approach was centripetal rather 
than centrifugal. He said, it is true, "let 
us live with our children," but his purpose 
was to lead them into the Universe which he 
viewed so philosophically and so mystically. 
As a consequence his disciples have for years 
followed a method of presentation which 
seemed best for the abstract child. Go into 
almost any class-room for a day's visit, and 
if its teacher is not heterodox you will find 
a unified order for the day in which every- 
thing is related from the morning circle to 
the final good-bye song. Go into any 
kindergarten in any city in the latter part of 
the year and you will find the same subject, 
the " Knight." Some years ago a young and 
enthusiastic kindergartner had for several 
days imbued, as she supposed, the souls of 
the little ones under her charge with the 
spirit of loyalty and truth, through the 
cumulative effect of stories, pictures, and 
games about the knight, until, thinking it 
time to give a concrete exercise, she told 
them to make a knight in clay. She left 
the room for a moment for a brief confer- 
[191] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

ence with her principal. Suddenly one of 
the little tots ran into the principal's office, 
climbed into her teacher's lap, threw her 
arms around her neck and whispered, "I 
can't make a knight; mayn't I make a 
scare-crow?" I found in the Montessori 
teacher rebellion against such an indirect 
approach to truth by way of symbol as the 
Froebelians have been trained to take, and 
this incident illustrates, and a hearty en- 
dorsement of Dr. Montessori' s pragmatic, 
direct approach. It is perfectly true that 
Froebel was the first to expound the doctrine 
of self-activity and to seize upon children's 
play as a means of outlet for that activity. 
But he could not appreciate the biological 
reasons for both, or their true significance as 
factors in the child's physical and mental 
growth. He therefore limited self-activity 
and modified the play impulse by making 
them conform to his philosophical theories 
as embodied in his systematically conceived 
series of gifts and occupations. He believed 
in child-study but it was an abstraction he 
had in mind, not a living, breathing, human 
individual in embryo. Hence the emphasis 
given to the group rather than to the indi- 
vidual, to the social rather than to the biolog- 
[192] 



THE MOVEMENT AND ITS CRITICS 

ical function of education. "The morning 
circle/' the group games, the table planned 
for a number of children in the gift work or 
the occupations — all serve as illustrations. 
The place of the teacher in this system also 
shows the limited conception its founder 
had of the doctrine of freedom and self- 
activity. Her training, careful and thorough 
though undoubtedly it is, emphasises philo- 
sophical abstractions, symbolic presentations 
more than scientific observation of the indi- 
vidual child. In too many kindergarten 
training schools teachers learn the use of the 
gifts and the occupations and the best way 
to play the games by practising with each 
other rather than with children. The ma- 
terial is also used, at first at least, by groups 
of teachers instead of by the children who 
should be observed by the teacher. 

Let us now make a similar study of Dr. 
Montessori. Her preparation has been dwelt 
upon elsewhere, so for our present needs a 
brief review will suffice. A young doctor 
of medicine, her first clinical experience was 
with children. Interested at first in the 
problem of the deficient child, she became 
a student and then a lecturer on anthro- 
pology in its relation to pedagogy. Years 
[193] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSOBI METHOD 

of successful experience with mentally de- 
fective children led her to the conviction 
that the normal child was sadly hampered 
by unscientific and unpedagogical methods. 
Years of successful application of her 
methods to normal children place her in 
the ranks of the educator rather than the 
theorist. 

If FroebeFs point of view represents the 
metaphysical philosophy of the eighteenth 
century, Montessori's is that of the scientific 
idealism of the twentieth. Froebel looks 
for the generic in the individual; Montessori 
looks to each individual in his spontaneous 
development to be a step to the higher de- 
velopment of the race. She has the same 
reverent belief in the spiritual life of the child; 
and her goal, its complete development, is the 
same; but her thoroughly scientific prepara- 
tion has proved to her that the flowering of 
that spirituality follows natural laws. She 
sees in the baby an undeveloped human 
being with infinite possibilities, which can be 
fulfilled only by the liberation of his person- 
ality and by conquest of the limitations of 
heredity and environment. Again, her poirt 
of view is that of the individual child, not 
an abstract conception of childhood. Such 
[194] 



THE MOVEMENT AND ITS CRITICS 

contrasted points of observation are log- 
ically followed by as differing an emphasis. 
Where Froebel was primarily general and 
symbolic, Montessori is chiefly concrete and 
practical. This has led to the hasty judg- 
ment that she is materialistic, that her 
method lacks spirituality, and that no appeal 
is made to the imagination or creative powers 
of children. The same criticism is laid upon 
the century in which she lives as contrasted 
with the one which gave birth to Froebel, 
with as little justice. To see life as it is — as 
an evolutionary process — need not imply a 
materialistic tendency. In fact such a posi- 
tion need not make one less, but rather more 
truly, spiritually minded. Montessori has 
herself noted this inter-relation of science 
and idealism, the fact that practical science 
and spiritual idealism keep pace with each 
other. Her philosophy combines a biolog- 
ical method with a philosophical ground- 
work. 

If Froebel's method of approach was 
largely centripetal, working toward the child, 
that of Montessori on the contrary is cen- 
trifugal, out from the child. Her purpose is 
to liberate the life force within the child so 
that he can conquer his environment. She 
[195] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

thinks of each child as a living, biological 
manifestation to be separately guided and 
studied. She puts the child first, the group 
second. Her problem is the individual 
child considered biologically and socially. 

As to the concrete embodiment of her 
theories in her didactic material little re- 
mains to be said after the study that has 
already been made except for the purpose of 
contrast or comparison. I believe it to be 
more practical, more suited to the auto- 
education of the child, more progressive and 
more complete as a means of sensory 
training. Dr. Montessori would retain 
FroebePs cubes and bricks, the clay model- 
ling and some of the games. I see no 
reason why we should not keep the morning 
circle in a modified form and the story- 
telling if it is not forced. 

The material is more practical because it 
relates directly to the life of the child and 
aids in making him independent. It is 
more auto-educative because it controls the 
error and the child, in the beginning at least, 
needs little help from the teacher. It is 
progressive as it leads the child by a series of 
logical steps from sensations to ideas, from 
the concrete to the abstract, from simple 
[196] 



THE MOVEMENT AND ITS CRITICS 

muscular co-ordination to acts involving 
much intelligence and thought. By it all 
the senses are trained, especially that of 
touch, but the aim of this training is not to 
perfect the senses but to lead the child by 
full sensory life to perception and concep- 
tion. Critics of the method fail, I think, to 
see that the purpose is for general sense im- 
pression rather than formal discipline. For 
this reason it differs from the sense training 
of Pestalozzi which had such a vogue many 
years ago. A wealth of sense impression 
is needed as the child's higher consciousness 
develops, or his brain cells will not function 
or his motor-activity be co-ordinated. 

Sense training as Montessori understands 
it has for its aim the development of keen 
perceptions which in their turn will pro- 
voke observation, association and general- 
isation. The biological effect of this sensory 
training is in the developing of the associa- 
tion centers in the cortex of the brain and 
of the nerve fibers connecting them; and 
the psychological effect in the change from 
the instinctive, impulsive life of element- 
ary consciousness to the higher conceptual 
and voluntary life of the fully developed 
mentality. 

[197] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

Critics also complain of a poverty of 
material in this method. There are three 
answers to this, I think. In the first place, 
Montessori herself considers the material a 
necessary minimum only, and would wel- 
come, I believe, such enrichment of it as our 
experience will prove wise for the American 
child who has much more initiative than the 
Italian. In the second place, as it is used 
spontaneously by an interested child, his 
awakening intelligence finds all sorts of 
original ways of using the material where 
a more sophisticated teacher would fail. 
Again the material as it is sold in this 
country gives no hint of the opportunity 
for free play, of free design and of manual 
and nature work that the system provides 
for. 

A final comparison between this material 
and that of Froebel should be made as to its 
effect on character. The two great thinkers 
are alike in the paramount place they give 
to character building but they differ in the 
means for acquiring it. Here again, it seems 
to me, Montessori is true to modern psychol- 
ogy in the importance given in her system 
to the development of the will through 
choice, through desire, and through effort, 
[198] 



THE MOVEMENT AND ITS CRITICS 

She does not think of the will as a separate 
faculty to be trained but as the flowering 
of the whole personality, the whole mind 
active. Her aim from the beginning is 
to lead the child to distinguish between 
right and wrong, good and evil, and spon- 
taneously to desire and choose the right 
action. Liberty for her means liberty 
through law; obedience involves discipline; 
independence is gained only by means of 
inhibition; true freedom through complete 
realisation of self. A complete understand- 
ing of this principle will confute the criticism 
that her idea of liberty is partial and 
restrained. The children I saw in Rome 
had gained in self-control, self-criticism, 
power of sustained effort, voluntary obedi- 
ence and joy in work. 

What modifications and changes in the 
elementary school may be expected if Dr. 
Montessori's controlling ideas permeate what 
is now the kindergarten? These may be 
grouped under four heads: First, those 
that will more closely relate this period to 
the elementary school; second, those that 
will modify the present course of study; 
third, those that will change the relation 
between teacher and pupil; and, fourth, 
[199] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

those that will change the method of 
teaching and studying. Let us consider 
each of these in turn. 

The present system of education, from 
kindergarten to university, has been pro- 
foundly affected by the ideas of Froebel for 
two reasons. In the first place, because a 
large proportion of the children in the schools 
pass from the kindergarten into the primary 
grades with good habits formed and much 
preparatory training already accomplished, 
and also because kindergarten principles 
have been applied in all the grades. It is 
only fair to suppose that in the same way 
the children who will enter our schools after 
having received the Montessori training, 
will of necessity radically change the present 
system. The first effect, that of a closer, 
more vital connection between the kinder- 
garten and the primary school, should be, 
I trust, to break down entirely the fence 
between them. I should like to see the 
present kindergarten and the first two years 
of the elementary school merged into one. 
I should like to see children pass through 
this period with varying rates of progress 
according to their individual capacities, 
interests and temperaments. This should be 
[200] 



THE MOVEMENT AND ITS CRITICS 

accomplished without undue forcing on the 
one hand or retardation on the other — the 
Scylla and Charybdis of school life. Some 
children would take three years, others more 
or less; but with no definite " promotion" at 
the end of each year, the difference between 
children would not be so noticeable. In the 
first period, which would combine what is 
now the kindergarten and the first two 
years of school, the child should gain 
freedom, independence, obedience, accurate 
sense perception, power of discrimination, 
training in attention through auto-education, 
power of observation and generalisation, 
and delight in work, in the joy of accom- 
plishment. His energies should have been 
multiplied, to use Dr. Montessori's sug- 
gestive phrase. 1 

In addition he should have the technique 
of writing, reading and number and be able 
to make intelligent and interested use of this 
technique. He should be self-directive, self- 
active, with standards ingrained through the 
development of visual and motor memory, 

1 Since writing the above I have read with interest a 
reputed statement by Prof. Thorndike, of Columbia 
University, who voices sentiments expressed by Dr. 
Montessori in the final chapter of her book. Both be- 
lieve that the rest for a normal person is in changing, 
joyous activity. 

[201) 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

obtained from the multiple stimuli of a full 
sensory experience. 

Such a preliminary training should make 
possible several modifications of the present 
course of study. Much of the time used in 
drill could be profitably spent in a richer, 
more intellectual way. If the child has the 
technique of writing and of composition, 
progress can be rapid in writing for expres- 
sion of thought. If the technique of reading 
has been mastered, much silent individual 
reading for the delight and knowledge it 
will give can have a place. If the technique 
of number and familiarity with the four 
processes — the tables and so on — has been 
gained, the way is clear for problem work 
involving simple geometric and algebraic 
ideas. Geography, history, modern lan- 
guages and Latin, if desired, can be begun 
earlier and have more time allotted to them 
than is now possible. 

The relation between the teacher and the 
pupils is so radically different in a Montes- 
sori school that children living in an atmos- 
phere of freedom and spontaneous choice 
would be stifled in an ordinary elementary 
school. The ideals already suggested must 
be sought for. The relation must be much 

[202] 



THE MOVEMENT AND ITS CRITICS 

more personal than it has ever been. The 
pupil must be trusted more, left more to 
himself. He must have his own standards, 
gained through true liberty and obedience, 
standards higher than any imposed from 
without. 

All this will lead to a change in the method 
of teaching. The control of the recitation 
will be largely in the hands of the class. 
The test will be not whether the teacher 
has developed an organised, unified lesson 
according to the familiar "five steps/' but 
what each child has brought to the recitation 
and carried away from it. The preparation 
on the part of the pupils if more spontaneous 
will be more interested. Habits of attention 
and effort formed early will insure good 
preparation. 

All this is, as yet, theoretical and has to 
stand the practical test of experience; and 
may express an ideal that is, as yet, far 
beyond our grasp. But it is good for us to 
reach the mountain-top of vision and with 
the prophets behold a new earth, a glorious 
world transfigured by hope and faith and 
enthusiasm. 



[203] 



CHAPTER XII 

THE DEEPER MESSAGE OF MONTESSORI 

"Humanity growing in the spirit according to its own 
deep laws." 

A pervasive and integral part of Dr. 
Montessori's educational system is found in 
its spiritual and even religious quality, a 
quality so pervasive and so integral that it 
seems difficult to treat of it in a separate 
chapter. Yet because I have seen with 
solicitude in the numerous discussions that 
have followed in the wake of the interest 
first aroused in the method, a marked absence 
of appreciation of this important feature, I 
shall try to place a greater emphasis than 
the scattered references throughout this book 
have given to the essentially spiritual or 
religious nature of her conception of educa- 
tion which embraces in its scope the moral 
and social regeneration of humanity. Italy 
has given to the world one renaissance, that 
of art. Can we now accept from it through 
this spiritually-minded woman a second re- 
naissance, that of education? What do we 
[204] 



THE MESSAGE OF MONTESSORI 

mean by renaissance? Of what is it a 
rebirth ? 

If we analyse carefully that quickening of 
life that came to the dead medievalism of the 
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, we shall 
find in it the following elements: a redis- 
covery of the Greek ideal of harmony be- 
tween the physical and the mental or 
spiritual nature of man; an affirmation of the 
dignity and worth of each human soul; a 
rebirth of freedom of thought and of action; 
and as an effect, a wonderful expression 
after centuries of repression, of creative 
energy seen in the efflorescence in letters, 
in art and in life — an expression which in 
both art and letters had a permanent 
because universal quality. Dante, Michael 
Angelo, Raphael and Shakespeare "were 
not of an age but for all time." Free- 
dom through abundance of life, freedom to 
live, to create, to express seems to be the 
central idea of the Italian Renaissance. 

Let us analyse in a similar way the philo- 
sophical ideas which give permanence and 
universality to the Montessori Method and 
make it a real contribution because it sug- 
gests the way to a similar rebirth in educa- 
tion. We recognise in Dr. Montessori a 
[205] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

dignity and repose which are the outcome 
of serious thought and the authority of one 
who gives out to the world that which has 
come from a deep spiritual experience. We 
find in her educational principles elements 
of permanence and universality, because 
they are founded on the hidden laws of 
humanity and can therefore be applied to 
all conditions whether of race, environment, 
or class. We see in her affirmation of the 
child's right to liberty and to the free ex- 
pression and consequent multiplication of 
his energies, a reverence for the individual 
based on a belief in the innate goodness of 
each soul which is radically opposed to the 
medieval doctrine of sin. In her belief that 
the love of learning for learning's sake and 
that the religious sentiment also are instinc- 
tive in a child we see a justification for her 
method which provides for the education of 
the body and the spirit according to the laws 
of his being. We find also as a result of this 
doctrine of freedom a faith in the possi- 
bilities latent in each child which by spon- 
taneous expression and wise direction may 
lead to complete spiritual as well as physical 
and moral development. 

A rebirth or renaissance in education ought 
[206] 



THE MESSAGE OF MONTESSORI 

to come as a result of a true scientific ped- 
agogy founded on the results of the ob- 
servations of and experiments with — by 
teachers who are at the same time scien- 
tific and sympathetic — the spontaneous 
manifestations of child nature expanding 
in true liberty. This conception of liberty, 
which, as I have already sought to explain, 
is so much broader than any yet accepted 
in our schools, includes liberty of the spirit; 
and the observation of the child under con- 
ditions of real liberty will establish a true 
pedagogy because it is in accord with the 
laws of spiritual growth. Education will 
then proceed by a natural method corre- 
sponding to the processes of growth in the 
child as he passes through the various 
stages from the early life of instinct, of sen- 
sation, of muscular co-ordination to that of 
fully developed consciousness. It will be a 
method based on a rational organisation for 
each child of his work and of his liberty and 
on the deeper spiritual laws including both 
activity and liberty. 

The results of such a method should be to 
give^^ new meaning to morality and to 
social conditions. They ought to prove that 
triofal training, now sadly lacking in many of 

£f [207] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

our schools, cannot be divorced from educa- 
tion. Such moral training ought to de- 
crease juvenile delinquency as well as the 
vice and crime so prevalent among the 
youth of great cities. Montessori claims for 
the children in her schools that "they have 
set their feet in the path leading to right- 
eousness because it was the only way to 
attain true self-development and learning; 
and they enjoy with simple hearts the fruits 
of peace that are to be gathered along that 
path." Self-control, liberty through law, 
poise, disciplined activity, self-reliance, re- 
spect for collective order, for the rights 
of others, hospitality, courtesy, kindliness, 
these and other moral qualities are to be 
found, as I have seen, in children brought 
up in the atmosphere of freedom which a 
Montessori school creates. These are posi- 
tive qualities coming from opportunity for 
self-expression, rather than negative ones 
arising from that self-repression and ti- 
midity, which, owing to a false code of 
etiquette, used to be more than it is now 
the characteristic of school children and has 
not even yet been fully eliminated. The 
moral instincts are watched for and wisely 
directed into habits of action, the spontane- 
[208] 



THE MESSAGE OF MONTESSORI 

ous desires are directed towards wise choices, 
the native interests are encouraged through 
ample opportunity for expression; and so 
character, which springs from habitual ac- 
tion, choice and interest united into a " fix- 
ation of modes of willing," is perfected 
simultaneously with the physical and intel- 
lectual powers. 

One element closely allied to this moral 
culture, holding an importance all its own, 
is that of aesthetic training. As the love 
of beauty is deepened and power of artistic 
expression increased from the refining of the 
senses, the child is led not only to observa- 
tion and appreciation of nature and of art 
but to creative and imaginative expression. 
This sense refinement opens to the child a 
new world of beauty and gives him a higher 
delight in colour, in form, in motion and in 
sound and so prevents his finding pleasure 
in coarse, unrefined appeals to untrained 
senses. 

As to social conditions, Montessori shows 
herself a true reformer; her aim is noth- 
ing less than human regeneration and her 
method is not iconoclastic but constructive. 
She desires to reform society and in order to 
accomplish this she would reconstruct the 
[209] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

environment of the child in the home and 
in the school; bring about a closer co-opera- 
tion between these two factors in the child's 
life, and give a new and higher meaning to a 
home as the dwelling of the family which is 
to further the perfection of the species "and 
to send the race triumphantly forward." 
To this extent, then, she is socialistic, and 
the full significance of her method cannot 
be appreciated unless we realise the possibili- 
ties inherent in her conceptions of a school 
within the house, socialisation of the house, 
and its transformation so that many of the 
so-called feminine duties are communised. 
Her vision of the social and economic 
evolution of society has shown her the neces- 
sity for a socialised home in order that many 
of the problems arising during the process 
of this evolution may be solved. She real- 
ises that the changes in both social and 
economic conditions have made woman's re- 
lation to the home very different from that 
which it was in an earlier stage before the 
complexities of modern life had sent outside 
the home many of the activities which made 
up the life of our grandmothers and had de- 
manded of the woman that she, in the great 
majority of cases, be a wage-earner. This 
[210] 



THE MESSAGE OF MONTESSORI 

new equality of opportunity, this new duty 
imposed on the majority of the women of 
to-day, that they actually contribute to the 
support of themselves and their families, 
necessitates that in order to be given time 
and strength for such work they must be 
released from what used to be considered 
paramount duties. A house communised, 
with a school within its walls which will 
take upon itself much of the care of the chil- 
dren of wage-earners, will make possible a 
new happiness, a new repose, and a higher 
union between the father and mother who 
return to it and to their children after a day 
of toil. The modern conception of eugenics 
— the conscious betterment of the race — 
may in this way be furthered. 

Dr. Montessori's ideas of social regenera- 
tion include as an ideal for the school that 
it shall abolish illiteracy by giving to chil- 
dren under seven the technique of writing, 
reading, and number, so that when they 
arrive at the working age instead of leaving 
school with little or no training, they will 
have mastered at least the rudiments of 
education. She would also prepare for 
industrial efficiency by helping each child to 
determine his vocational bent as the spon- 
[211] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

taneous manifestations of his nature lead to 
keen observation of his capacities by the 
teacher; and as complete sense training 
and muscular co-ordination prepare him for 
special training later in life. The higher 
wage which would come as a result of this 
efficiency, would raise the standard of living 
of one great division of the social order, the 
labouring class. 

While, then, Montessori would regenerate 
through the home and the school those 
members of society who form the great 
army of wage-earners, she does not limit 
her efforts to that class only. Her spiritual 
message comes with equal force to the 
fortunate ones of the earth, those to whom 
are given leisure with opportunities for 
education, for altruism. Her appeal to 
them is that they use their leisure, their 
opportunities, in co-operation with the 
school so that they may unite with it in 
creating an environment and a power of 
direction which shall liberate, energise and 
perfect human nature. 

Thus does Montessori point the way to a 

reformation, the natural outcome, as history 

proves, of a true renaissance, and this I 

believe to be her deeper message to our age. 

[212] 



CHAPTER XIII 

A SUGGESTION FOR THE SUMMER, 
A Montessori Playhouse. 

Schools and teachers, in America at 
least, even if not to the same extent in 
England, are greatly hampered in their 
work with children by some unfortunate 
features which are made necessary by con- 
ditions of climate and habits of living. 
Chief among these perhaps is the long sum- 
mer vacation. Almost all teachers know 
the feeling of discouragement that comes 
to them twice a year at least (especially if 
they are connected with a private school), 
in the fall when the golden autumn days 
tempt families to stay later and later in 
their summer homes and again in the spring 
when the call of the awakening year is 
too strong to be resisted, and when, long 
before the school term is completed, the 
classes dwindle and the pupils melt away. 
In view of these conditions, which must be 
frankly met, it should be possible to make 
some use of the long idle summer without 
[213] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

in the slightest degree interfering with the 
out-door life so wholesome for children. The 
Montessori system of education with its prin- 
ciples of liberty, spontaneity and individu- 
ality and with the opportunities it furnishes 
for work in the open air, may be found a 
means of using the summer time so that 
our children may have healthy mental as 
well as physical growth. 

It may be helpful therefore to groups of 
mothers, who for many weeks of each year 
settle down in some quiet place in the 
country if, by way of practical suggestion, 
I give my own experience, when I gath- 
ered a group of children about me in what 
they called a " Montessori Playhouse/' in 
the summer of 1912. 

In England where little children are 
taught in the nursery and where country 
seats are more isolated than with us, the 
conditions of the problem differ. With 
the spread of Montessori ideas and with 
the return from Home of trained directors, 
however, opportunities will arise for nursery 
governesses to fit themselves for this work 
in both countries. 

"Nancy," I said one morning, " would 
you like to help me make a Playhouse? 
[214] 



A SUGGESTION FOR THE SUMMER 

Then we can ask some children to come 
every day and use it with us. " 

Nancy is a little over three, small for 
her age, but full of life and vitality. An 
only child, she and her mother spend the 
summer with her grandmother, who is our 
next-door neighbour, in a Long Island vil- 
lage near the sea. 

The Playhouse I had in mind seemed to 
me quite ideal as a place in which to make 
the experiment I had longed for ever since 
I returned from my study of the Montes- 
sori methods in Rome. According to the 
pleasant Long Island custom of planting 
trees as boundary lines, a row of stately 
oaks formed a beautiful background to the 
little house, while in front was a windmill, 
an orchard and a vegetable garden. The 
building itself was originally intended for 
an ice house, so was cool and airy, with 
plenty of floor space. We covered the 
floor with canvas on which we threw down 
each morning a Navajo rug. Chests around 
the wall covered with a Bagdad curtain 
(for the place had been used as a store- 
room) held the Montessori material very 
nicely, while two bridge tables and some 
empty boxes covered with felting served as 
[215] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

tables and seats for the children. Boughs of 
pine and bunches of golden-rod decorated 
the walls, and some nails driven into them 
at the proper height gave each child a place 
for his hat and coat. A bird-house which 
the starlings had deserted the summer be- 
fore placed outside near the door made an 
ideal apartment house for several families 
of paper dolls. 

Nancy saw with delight the possibilities 
for good times latent in this simple place 
and helped me make it ready with a woman's 
wit quite unexpected in a three-year-old. 
We decided on the following children to 
complete our family: John, nearly four, 
who lived across the way; Mary, about 
five, who was visiting in the village; Caleb, 
another neighbour; and Ira, the son of 
artists who made their home not far off. 
By a curious instinct, common to boys and 
dogs, Billy, a son of the farmer who took 
care of John's place, and Fuji, our beautiful 
red setter, appeared the first morning and 
regularly thereafter. 

Fuji, with his wonderful sense of what is 

fitting in a well-bred dog, never once entered 

the playhouse itself, but established himself 

in the shade nearby, ready to join in the 

[216] 



r 


: : [y-.r* 












sreeiss™*" \ .j 








' ■■ ' ,,'•-'• 


. ^% 


*:* 




■ , § 


' 


■ 




,, a .,,.3\ 


. 






•■-,Wvv 



* 



; : ,f-< 



, 



NANCY'S IDEAL HANDS 



A SUGGESTION FOR THE SUMMER 

games outside when he was useful as a 
sheep or cow in "Little Boy Blue" or as "Old 
Mother Hubbard's" dog. Billy announced 
the first day that he "helped Miss Stevens," 
and as he was two years older than the 
others, this attitude of mind enabled him 
to use any of the material with no blow to 
his pride. 

The children and their mothers accepted 
Nancy's and my invitation with alacrity, 
and half-past nine each morning found a 
group of children waiting for me to appear 
with the key. 

At first Nancy, who sadly needed the 
Montessori training in liberty, would not 
come without her mother or aunty, who were 
obliged to join in the life of the party, but 
in a few days she took a pride in coming 
and going by herself through the hedge and 
across the lawn which separated her home 
from ours. She always bade the playhouse 
"Good-morning" and "Good-bye" as reg- 
ularly as she did the children and myself. 

Each child, after he had hung up his 
hat, parasol or coat on the proper hook, 
helped to get the playhouse ready. Ira 
and Nancy took possession of the two long- 
handled hearth brooms I had provided, but 
[217] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

John, real boy that he is, seized upon the 
"Little dirty broom" with a broken handle, 
which I had hidden away, and Billy, in his 
character of assistant, always used the only 
"Grown up broom " in the place. After 
the floor had been swept, the rug laid down, 
the boxes covered and numerous pieces of 
the Montessori material dusted, which Mary 
liked to do, we were ready for our "Game 
of Silence." 

The first morning each child had chosen 
from the boxes of various heights the one 
suited to his size and went to it thereafter 
as a matter of course, except Billy, who took 
a camp chair, while I had the one full-sized 
chair in the room. 

I was glad to see that this game of silence 
appealed to American as it does to the 
Italian children, for the former need the 
training in self-control and inhibition even 
more than the latter. These warm summer 
days in the very heart of nature seemed 
formed for nature teaching, so I modified 
somewhat the game as I saw it played in 
Italy while keeping to its spirit. It was 
difficult at first for the children to isolate 
their senses by closing their eyes, but after 
a few days even Nancy, who had been 
[218] 



A SUGGESTION FOR THE SUMMER 

the most timid, sat in perfect quite on her 
little blue-covered box, her eyes closed, list- 
ening to the sounds outside. "What do you 
hear, children?" I would whisper softly. 
"The windmill," one would say; "The 
crickets," another; "The wind," a third; 
and then someone would distinguish the 
merry-go-round in the distant village. 
Then I would softly call to each in turn to 
come to me and name with his eyes closed 
the odour of cinnamon, coffee, tea, pine 
needles, nasturtiums, or geraniums and so 
on, which I kept in little boxes. Each child 
had his favorite odour. Ira always chose 
cinnamon and Nancy tea. 

After the children had used the boards 
for teaching rough and smooth, one would 
often silently bring me a rough stone, another 
a smooth one, or a rough pine cone as dis- 
tinguished from a smooth pine needle, or 
an oak leaf contrasted with a mullein. I 
also varied their number exercises by giving 
a whispered command to each child to bring 
me two acorns, or five pine cones, or six 
nasturtiums as he or she had the number 
sense developed. This silence game ended 
when each child went to the side of the room 
where the regular Montessori material was 
[2191 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

arranged and chose his or her own game. I 
found some difficulty at first as a child was 
more apt to say "I don't want to play this" 
than to choose some part of the material, 
or else several would want the same thing. 
Here, then, was an opportunity for Mon- 
tessori discipline and the development of 
the social sense, to which most of the chil- 
dren responded quickly. 

It was also interesting to notice the choice 
of each child. Ira, the little artist, wanted 
the metal insets for design and the coloured 
pencils or the boxes of reels wound with 
silk of many colours and shades. Mary, 
more practical, would take the frames, 
beginning with the buttoning which she 
could do easily and finishing with the bow- 
knot which was very difficult for her. 
Nancy, the woman in miniature, loved to 
play with the fabrics and quickly learned 
the difference between velvet, silk, woolen, 
linen and cotton; while Billy, after amusing 
himself in a shamefaced way with the same 
games the younger children were using, 
would take the box of script letters or numbers. 
While he was the only one who had attended 
school, he had not had any manual training 
and was behind the little ones in the use of 
[220] 



A SUGGESTION FOR THE SUMMER 

his hands. Ira announced gravely one day, 
"I think I can draw better if I can have the 
cinnamon box open so I can smeli it," and 
was quite disappointed in Nancy because 
she did not care to smell tea as she worked ! 

Mary when at home had an inveterate 
habit of romancing so that her family felt 
that she had no sense of the difference 
between fact and fiction. It was most in- 
teresting, therefore, to note that this undue 
use of her imagination would be in abeyance 
during the entire morning while she was 
absorbed in doing something in the right 
way and seeing things as they are. In fact, 
I found these games a wonderful help in 
early lessons in the difference between right 
and wrong. 

John was in some ways the most inter- 
esting because the most difficult child to 
deal with. Although not, like Nancy and 
Ira, an only child, he had much less social 
sense, and though he was quick in his move- 
ments and unusually strong for his age he 
had very little idea of organised play and 
delighted in merely making a noise. He 
would choose the Tower, Big Stair, or Long 
Stair, but wished to use them in his own 
way to build a railroad track or train 
[221] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

of cars. Only gradually did he use them 
intelligently. 

After Ira had learned perfectly the use of 
the frames for lacing, buttoning, hooking, 
and so on, I gave him a lesson in braiding 
with three strands of rope tied to a chair. A 
better way would be to use three colours 
just as two colours are used in tying the 
bow knots. I found this braiding excellent 
also for teaching left and right. After he 
had braided the strands of rope together he 
was delighted to braid Nancy's soft baby 
hair. In fact, the mothers told me how the 
children applied the ability acquired in the 
playhouse after they went home. They 
put away their playthings as they never 
had before, left things in order, dressed and 
undressed themselves and showed in every 
way improvement in self-control. 

When the children got restless I impro- 
vised some gymnastics. For the walking 
on a line, which I saw so much of in Rome, I 
substituted the cracks in the floor between 
the wide old-fashioned boards, each child 
choosing his own crack, or I had one child 
lead the others up and down the stripes of 
the Navajo rug. Ira threw himself down 
one morning on the floor and pretended to 
[222] 



A SUGGESTION FOR THE SUMMER 

swim; an ideal exercise which I was glad to 
see all of the others attempt. Much of our 
work was done out of doors on the grass 
under the shade of the oaks or in the orchard, 
where a rug spread on the grass and some 
boxes would hold the material. 

I found a helpful extension of the drawing 
with coloured pencils in making paper dolls. 
I had made simple outlines of dolls of various 
sizes and kinds, father, mother, big and 
little sisters and brothers, and cut out 
plenty of these from heavy white paper. 
The children delighted to colour these with 
their pencils, which gave them the same 
preparation for the technique of writing as 
the drawing of the designs with the metal 
insets and appealed as well to the American 
child's love of making something for use. 
In the bird-house I have already mentioned 
were five or six rows of holes with little 
balconies in front, so each child had his own 
floor in the doll apartment-house and his 
own family of dolls. 

At recess, the children dramatised many 
games in the open air. Ira taught them to 
play "Jack and Jill" and would carefully 
select a little rise of ground for a hill and a 
low fruit tree from which to fill his pail of 
[223] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

water, and he, with Mary or Nancy as Jill, 
would delight in their roll over and over in 
the soft grass. John loved to turn one of 
the boxes upside down for a chicken coop, 
in which he, Caleb and Nancy would chirp 
as little chicks. Mary would be the mother 
hen, and Bill or Ira the rooster, while I was 
expected to make the various calls which 
would bring each to me. 

Nancy loved to play "Rock-a-bye Baby," 
when she would roll in great glee off the 
box at the moment the bough was supposed 
to break, or "Ring around a Rosy," which 
she wanted over and over again. Mary 
taught them how to play "Little Boy Blue." 
Ira quickly made a horn of brown paper and 
lay down on a hillock, while the other 
children with Fuji, the dog, were the sheep 
and cows. After these and other games out 
of doors the children would have a drink at 
the windmill, wash their hands and go back 
to the playhouse to be quieted by another 
game of silence and then to choose a Mon- 
tessori game. Before they went home they 
would prepare the playhouse for the next 
day by putting all the material in order, 
rolling up the rug and folding the box 
covers. 

[224] 



A SUGGESTION FOR THE SUMMER 

This first experiment in a summer Mon- 
tessori school lasted only a few weeks but I 
am enthusiastic in my belief as to its value. 
American and English children during the 
long days and weeks of the summer have 
been left too much to unintelligent nurses 
and need the self-training and organised 
intelligent play that such an adaptation of 
the Montessori idea can give them. Even in 
the few weeks and short hours of each day 
the children spent with me, the results 
obtained were most gratifying. They 
learned respect for and care of the material, 
would come to it with clean hands, take it 
up carefully and replace one game before 
beginning another. They gained in self- 
control and power of inhibition through the 
various games of silence. They learned to 
enjoy intelligent, organised play to some 
definite purpose and preferred it to the dis- 
organised activity which is so common in 
America. They learned to enj oy their senses 
through isolation. Pleasure from the sense 
of smell, hearing and touch revealed new 
worlds to them as their power of obser- 
vation developed spontaneously. They 
learned fine discriminations of colour, size, 
sound and weight as they played with the 
[225] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

reels of coloured silks, the Big and Long Stair, 
sound boxes and woods of various weights. 

In the way of social training they learned 
the beginning of a sense of responsibility 
in caring for their own house, of hospitality 
in welcoming the parents who visited it, of 
pride in making it pretty with flowers, of 
collective ownership in the material which 
they used together and individual rights in 
the separate use of the various games. They 
gained in liberty. Nancy, the most petted 
and dependent of them all, who had liter- 
ally lived with her hand in that of an older 
person, went back and forth alone, put up 
and took down her own material, swept and 
dusted the room, shared the games with the 
other children and at home dressed and un- 
dressed herself and put away her toys. She 
learned very quickly the sandpaper figures 
from one to five, which she placed correctly 
on the Long Stair, and some of the letters. 
Naturally graceful and deft, she was begin- 
ning to get the technique of writing through 
using the metal insets and the coloured 
pencils. 

She gave one day an example of the effect 
of the sense training on her power to observe. 
She had used the circle in the set of wooden 
[226] 






A SUGGESTION FOR THE SUMMER 

insets, tracing its outline with her finger and 
then the corresponding opening in the square. 
She had also traced its outline on paper with 
the metal inset, filling in the space thus made 
with her coloured pencils. One day as she 
ran home after her morning in the play- 
house her grandmother's greeting to her was 
"Will you join our circle, Nancy?' 7 Nancy 
looked gravely at the group seated on the 
porch, answered, "That is not a circle, " 
and proceeded to make one with the chairs. 

I could note similar growth in all of the 
children, Mary, who was only at the school 
for ten days, gained in that short time in 
power of attention and concentration. I 
found she had the brightest, most alert mind 
of any of the children, a "wireless" ready to 
take messages at any moment. Her verbal 
memory was not as strong as Nancy's but 
her powers of association were wonderful 
for so young a child. Her imagination was 
so overdeveloped that the training the ma- 
terial gave her was especially helpful. She 
is an example of the American child whose 
imagination is so active that it will derive 
great benefit from the Montessori material 
as a guide to truth and right. 

I hope that by another summer there will 
[227] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

be many teachers trained in Montessori 
methods and in sympathy with its spirit, 
who will open many houses of play in our 
scattered summer communities, where I 
think they will find groups of parents ready 
to co-operate with them and many children 
eager to become tenants. 



[228] 



CHAPTER XIV 

A SUGGESTION FOR THE SUBURBS 

"The property of the collectivity.' ' 

I am indebted for the idea which started 
my imagination to work out the details of 
this chapter, to one of that army of mothers 
who have responded so earnestly and so 
cordially to Dr. Montessori's ideas and who 
are in one way and another making practical 
experiments. The conditions in the suburb 
where this mother lives may be duplicated 
all over the country wherever a large city 
has surrounded itself with small centers of 
country life with few municipal privileges 
and no municipal institutions such as schools 
or shops. These smaller suburbs are, in 
many cases, largely populated by young 
married people who have only moderate 
incomes. They must live near the city, the 
business or professional home of the hus- 
band and father. They prefer a real home, 
with country advantages of space and free- 
dom for their children, to a small apart- 
ment in a crowded city block. Many of 
[229] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSOKI METHOD 

these families live simply, perhaps with 
only one maid, so the care of the chil- 
dren falls largely upon the mother. Yet 
she is young, full of life and spirits, very 
probably a college graduate, and the call of 
the city comes to her with tempting force. 
Galleries, concerts, theaters, opera perhaps, 
shopping, lectures, all these good things 
beckon her and are within easy reach, too, 
for the different railroads take care of their 
suburban patrons. Must there be a con- 
flict of desires here? Ought her hunger for 
art, music, drama, pretty things, to go un- 
satisfied because she is torn between duty 
to herself and her children, because she must 
keep the little boy or girl out in the air or 
take the maid's place on her afternoons out? 
Or may she with a clear conscience hie her- 
self to the city at not too frequent intervals, 
confident that her children are in good hands 
while she is gone? 

Dr. Montessori, in her inaugural address 
at the opening of the first Casa dei Bambini 
looks with a prophet's vision into the future 
and sees "a socialised school in a socialised 
house, the property of the collectivity/ ' 
where any mother, who is forced by modern 
conditions of wage earning to work outside 
[230] 



A SUGGESTION FOR THE SUBURBS 

the home, may leave her child secure in the 
feeling that it will have the same care as if 
she were a princess, because "the feminine 
duties have been socialised, the house has 
been transformed and now assumes many of 
the functions of the mother." Let us also 
have our vision, young mothers of the sub- 
urbs, of a "Children's House" built for the 
purpose with money from a common fund. 
It is centrally situated with plenty of ground 
about it but it is very simply built; it may 
even be a tent on a large platform. It is 
built to conform to a children's scale; the 
windows are low, the grounds arranged for 
children's play and children's gardens. Out- 
side the house are wide piazzas for use in 
stormy weather. Inside, one passes first 
into a central hall with cloak and dressing 
rooms at the sides and back; at the right 
is a large square room with windows on 
three sides. In the corners are large plants, 
in the window-boxes are flowers; bird-cages 
hang in front of some of the windows. 
The furniture is white enamel with a blue 
line for decoration. Tables and chairs for 
all the children take up only half the floor 
space, and are low, light, yet firm. On the 
free floor space are squares of felt carpeting or 
[231] 



: A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

lines drawn for marching and other gymnastic 
work. Around the walls, between the win- 
dows, are cases where the material is kept, 
and low blackboards and chests of drawers 
where each child may keep his finished work. 
On the walls above the shelves and black- 
boards are some good pictures, the " Madonna 
of the Chair" for one. On the shelves are 
vases for flowers and artistic pieces of pot- 
tery. On the opposite side of the hall a 
door opens which leads into two rooms, each 
one-half the size of the schoolroom. The 
first is for rest and recreation. In it are 
little tables with picture-books, toys and 
games. In one corner is a piano; across 
other corners are swung hammocks, while 
around the walls between the windows are 
shelves made in compartments, where each 
child may keep his own favorite books, 
playthings or collections. Back of this 
room comes the lunch room. Here we find 
square tables, so that groups of children may 
take lunch together, each table having its 
hostess for the day. Everything is on the 
same childish scale; the china, glass, silver 
and linen are kept in cases about the room, 
to be used each day by the children as the 
tables are set. Still behind this is a small 
[232] 



A SUGGESTION FOR THE SUBURBS 

kitchen where a cheery, kindly maid pre- 
pares a nourishing soup, bakes potatoes and 
cooks chops or eggs as mothers have ordered. 

Let us follow in imagination for the day 
two little folk, whose mother, for any one 
of the reasons mentioned, wishes to take 
the nine o'clock train for the city and stay 
there for lunch and the greater part of the 
afternoon. The telephone has called up 
the Montessori teacher, employed by the 
Mother's Club to which this mother belongs, 
who has apartments on the second floor of 
the school building. She has been told that 
Mary will come to school to-day for the 
afternoon as well as the morning, and little 
Jack will come with her. Will she please ask 
the maid to see to their lunch as usual? 
On the way to the train, mother leaves Mary 
and Jack at the " Children's House" with 
a light heart and an easy conscience, and 
proceeds to the city anticipating a day's 
enjoyment. 

It is only a quarter before nine but the 
children are none too early. Mary is a 
frequent visitor to the morning session and 
Jack an occasional one, so they know exactly 
what routine to follow. Their names are 
printed above two of the lockers in the hall 
[233] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

where they hang up their hats and coats, 
and then find and put on aprons with their 
names embroidered on them. 

Then they run into the schoolroom where 
they find a group of children all busily em- 
ployed in preparing the room for the day. 
Some are wiping off the chairs, others the 
tables, others the window-ledges, tops of 
shelves and cases. Others water the plants 
and pick off the dead leaves. Still others 
take down some of the material and work 
with it or use the blackboard for writing or 
numbers. Meanwhile the teacher has come 
in quietly and been lovingly greeted. The 
maid, who will help with the lunch later, has 
busied herself in the cloakroom, helping the 
very little tots who require her assistance. 

The clock on the shelf strikes nine and the 
teacher takes her chair in front of the double 
row of tables at each of which are two chairs. 
The children run quietly to the tables, each 
taking the, seat to which habit has accus- 
tomed him when in collective order. Grad- 
ually quiet succeeds the cheerful noise of 
happy children at work; each child relaxes, 
sits quietly in his place, his hands folded. In 
turn each responds to the call of his name in 
a low voice by the teacher. Softly the words 
[234] 



A SUGGESTION FOR THE SUBURBS 

of a familiar hymn are heard and the chil- 
dren join their voices to that of the teacher 
and then in a childish prayer followed by 
the Lord's Prayer. Then follows five or ten 
minutes of talk between teacher and pupils, 
who tell what they saw on their way home 
or this morning coming to school. Yester- 
day was a holiday, so many children have 
stories to tell of their adventures. Mary 
and John visited the Bronx with their father 
and are eager to tell of the wonderful 
elephants and the other animals they saw 
for the first time. Others of the children 
have brought flowers for the schoolroom or 
plants for the garden. 

After this the teacher goes to the board 
in front of the children and writes down 
the names of the helpers with the duties of 
each. John is to lead the gymnastic games. 
Lucy and Fred are to start the dramatic 
games in the garden at recess. Jane and 
four others are to set the tables for lunch; 
eight others are to act as hostesses; three 
of the little ones are to spread out the felt 
carpeting. John, then, as leader, starts for 
the empty floor space painted thus: 

CXHD 

[235] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

followed by all the children except a few 
who prefer to look on for a while. They 
follow him up and down the lines, first on 
a walk, then on a run; all walking on the 
balls of their feet and running on tiptoes, 
waving their arms in rhythm and balance 
with their feet. It is now half-past nine 
and the teacher goes to the board and writes 
" Silence, " then draws the shades to darken 
the room and takes her seat. Again the 
little folk take their accustomed seats and 
subside into absolute silence in the darkened 
room. The teacher, who has, unobserved, 
slipped to the back of the room, whispers 
the name of each child, who tiptoes to her 
without a sound. When all are grouped 
around her the spell is broken, the shades 
are raised and each child goes to the case 
to get any game he likes, provided he has 
been shown by the teacher its proper use. 

Mary is greatly interested in a design she 
began a day or two before and had not 
finished, so she goes to the case of drawers 
and finds her paper and pencils in the drawer 
which has her name on it. Little Jack 
wants one of the solid insets which he 
takes to one of the squares of felting on the 
floor. After Mary has finishedlher design, 
[236] 



A SUGGESTION FOR THE SUBURBS 

which her teacher tells her is the prettiest 
she has ever made, she takes the box of 
sandpaper letters and traces each with her 
fingers, giving its sound as she does this. 
She finds she has learned perfectly all the 
sounds, so she takes the other box, which has 
letters in phonetic combinations. Then she 
gets out from the case the boxes of script 
letters and rapidly makes on the floor near 
where Jack is playing this sentence, "Jack 
came to school to-day," and eagerly reads 
it to him, as she does so, sounding each word 
carefully and distinctly for him. Suddenly 
a thought strikes her: she has just before 
this sounded "came" with the sandpaper 
letters and traced it with her fingers. She 
runs to the blackboard, seizes a piece of 
chalk and writes in legible, even script the 
word, "came." It is a revelation to her; 
she has a new accomplishment; she can 
write! 

It is eleven o'clock and most of the chil- 
dren are on their way to the garden, but she 
is unconscious of that fact, all her energies 
being bent on trying her new powers as she 
writes word after word, until, wishing to 
share her triumph with some one, she sees 
the room is deserted, so runs out into the 
[237] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

garden, calling gleefully, "I can write, lean 
write !'■ Then she remembers that her 
name is on the list of those who are to serve 
at table, so she must have her lunch early. 
She has time for one game with the other 
children before she goes into the lunch room, 
where the maid has placed at a side table, 
lunch for her and the other little waitresses. 
While they are eating, the group whose 
duty and pleasure it is to set the tables 
come in and proceed in a most business-like 
fashion. The oldest boy hands out the 
dishes, four of each for each table; the girls 
have laid the cloths and the smaller children 
put glasses, plates, knives, forks, spoons, 
in proper order. By the time they are ready, 
Mary and the others, having finished lunch, 
don little white caps, cuffs and aprons. 
Two of them run into the schoolroom, where 
the children have assembled after washing 
their hands, and say, with a bow to the 
teacher, "Luncheon is served.' 7 

The children march in, two by two, and 
take their seats, four at each table. The 
waitresses bring in the soup, allowing each 
child to help himself, but no one starts to 
eat until each hostess has led her table in a 
childish grace, "Lord, make me thankful 
[238] 



A SUGGESTION FOR THE SUBURBS 

for this food and ready to give to those 
who have it not." 

Mary is kept pretty busy; she takes away 
the soup tureen after she has served the 
children and fills the glasses with milk or 
water, then she takes away the soup plates 
and passes the baked potatoes, eggs or 
chops, as the maid who has cooked them 
directs. She has charge of two tables and 
fortunately — she thinks — one of them is 
where the teacher is sitting, though she is 
not a hostess. After lunch she and the 
others make quick work of washing and 
putting away the dishes. 

In the meantime Jack has caught sight 
of one of the hammocks and has curled 
himself up for a nap. Many of the children 
went home before lunch but those who, 
like Mary, are there for the day have some 
happy hours before them. The afternoon 
teacher has come and with her they have 
musical training, work in clay, and more 
games with the material. Jack, rested 
from his nap, has been happy with a box of 
colours, with which he has made a rug of 
shaded blues, grays and pink. 

Four o'clock comes before they know it, 
and they are surprised to see their mother 
[239] 



A GUIDE TO THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

come in, her hands full of packages. They 
go happily home, each full of the day's 
incidents. 

It seems to ive that this suggestion, like 
that of the Montessori summer school, is a 
feasible experiment and would bring in 
large social, educational, and ethical returns 
if extensively introduced. The need for 
reform is urgent in both cases. Why not 
find a solution of the problem in Montessori? 



THE END 



3^7 7 



[240] 

b 



